How many Red Hat employees, known internally as Red Hatters, will be laid off in the coming months? Which departments will be hit? What is Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks’ reasoning behind the layoffs?

CRN answers these questions and more after the open-source superstar confirmed today that the company will be laying off several hundred employees.

“There have been several occasions where we’ve had to make tough decisions at Red Hat, but no decision has been harder than the one I must communicate to you today: We will reduce the associate base of Red Hat over the next few months,” said Matt Hicks in a letter to employees today which CRN reviewed.

[Related: AWS Confirms Layoffs Impacting ‘Single Digit Percentage’ Of Employees]

CEO: Red Hat Must ‘Do Fewer Things Better’

Hicks, who took over the CEO reins at Red Hat in July, said the decision to lay off hundreds of employees is “appropriate to ensure Red Hat’s ability to compete in a new environment.”

“We must continue to sharpen our focus and do fewer things better,” said Hicks. “This will be difficult for all of us; there is no way around that.”

Red Hat is a Raleigh, N.C.-based software company— owned by IBM—which generates billions of dollars in software sales each quarter.

In IBM’s latest fourth quarter 2022 financial earnings report, the company reported software revenue of $7.3 billion, up 3 percent year over year. IBM’s software segment includes Red Hat sales. Although IBM doesn’t break out the exact revenue figures, IBM said Red Hat sales grew 10 percent year over year.

IBM Chief Financial Officer (CFO) James Kavanaugh confirmed that Red Hat’s popular OpenShift hybrid cloud platform has a $1 billion annual recurring revenue run rate. OpenShift and Red Hat’s Ansible subsidiary grew double digits during the fourth quarter of 2022, he said.

CRN breaks down five of the most important things Red Hat employees, customers and partners need to know about the layoffs.