https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2025/03/05/ibm-data-security-red-hat-middleware-units-combine.html
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@np+1jnmyxhxe - I used to work at Red Hat and most of the US engineering base is in MA, not in Raleigh, NC. Raleigh is the HQ so has all of the back office functions and people from all functions as well but most US based engineers are in the MA office outside of Boston.
The CEO now is Matt Hicks (not Jim Whitehurst who sadly left after the IBM acquisition) and Matt was the Red Hat engineering leader so was based in MA as well.
I do not know if there will be lay offs, however they are different product areas of middleware. I am assuming they will integrate where they can. Many middleware engineers are around the globe.
Think about it. If they merge, Jboss might get a new name and no one will ever know about the press release stating PTC for railroads used JBoss.
It is nothing short of hilarious to read that Sarwar Raza, vice president and general manager of the middleware business at Red Hat, lives in Massachusetts while the rest of the Red Hat Team is in Raleigh. Did Sarwar get special dispensation from Alvind, Krabanaugh or the Pope (or all three) to avoid the colocation order that everyone else at IBM has to follow ? From the name, Mr. Raza seems to be another South Asian like Alvind. What is also interesting is that the CEO of Red Hat, Jim Hicks is also based in the Boston area. Are the Red Hat management team trying to defect from Red Hat in light of future IBM layoffs ?? Alvind insists on his $100 million bonus for 2025 by hook or by crook - yes, we all know he is a crook.
[Complete article from OP quoted below].
IBM takes over key Red Hat unit --
By: Lauren Ohnesorge – Senior Staff Writer, Triangle Business Journal
Mar 5, 2025 Updated Mar 6, 2025 8:51am EST
Six years after IBM closed on Red Hat with a promise that the Raleigh-based software company would retain its identity, a key team is being moved under the Big Blue umbrella.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) says the Red Hat middleware engineering and product teams will join the IBM Data Security, IAM, and Runtimes organization, forming a single team. The move, expected to be complete in May, is billed as a “unified product strategy for the future of Java applications and Integration solutions in the era of cloud and AI.”
Sarwar Raza, vice president and general manager of the middleware business at Red Hat, will lead the combined product and engineering teams. He said there are no plans for job cuts related to the merger — not at Red Hat, headquartered in Downtown Raleigh, and not at IBM, which has its largest campus in Research Triangle Park.
Raza said the move is not an efficiency play, but rather about “fortifying our roadmaps.”
“IBM has a very large middleware business,” he said. “Red Hat has a large middleware business. They don’t actually overlap very much in terms of their customer bases. However, they are built using some of the same foundational technologies.”
Raza declined to give headcount numbers for either Red Hat or IBM when it came to middleware. But Raza, who is based in Massachusetts, said both have presences in the Triangle.
“We find ourselves at an inflection point in the market where customers want to know what’s next for the java ecosystem, right?” he said. “We can give them an answer from Red Hat. We can give them an answer from IBM or we can give them one answer.”
Raza sees it as combining IBM's enterprise functionality with Red Hat’s open source leadership.
“You put those together and we can now deliver the next 10, 15 years of innovation in this space together,” he said.
Customers won’t see a difference, Raza said. Both firms will continue to sell products. Red Hat CEO Matt Hicks, who is based in the Boston area, announced the plan last month.
“Securing the future of Java is a challenge best tackled together,” Hicks wrote in a blog post.
Red Hat defines middleware as a software layer that connects an operating system to applications, data and users.
IBM closed on its $34 billion buy of Red Hat in 2019, with then-Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst promising "Red Hat is still Red Hat." Multiple companies had looked at potentially purchasing Red Hat before IBM emerged as a winner. And the buy appears to have paid off. Last year, executives said Red Hat revenue had doubled since the buy. And there have been multiple collaborations with Red Hat, particularly in the AI space.
Already posted and discussed at this thread almost 2 weeks ago: @OP+1jmbge75p
This is just moving people from Red Hat to IBM so the layoffs can happen under the IBM umbrella, not under Red Hat, to keep its reputation relatively untarnished.
is this combining of two different business units to achieve economies of scale and improving products or just to lay off more expensive executives and managers and then move on to developers and eventually move the Red Hat development to India ? After all, Alvind is looking to get his $100 million bonus in 2025 by hook or by crook, and the fat shamed obese lapdog Krabanaugh has to do something to make the stars align.
Any Bluewashed id--t can read the writing on the wall.