Red Hat can no longer be aptly described as “the Linux company”. The firm might have made its name with a distribution of the operating system but its reach now extends far beyond those confines.

Instead, Red Hat can perhaps be best categorised as a firm at the centre of an open-source alternative to the software stacks being developed by traditional enterprise heavyweights such as IBM, Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.

Its approach is very different to those companies, however. Red Hat is building out middleware offerings through its own brand after the acquisition of JBoss and the in-house development of MRG, its messaging middleware and grid management software.

But rather than adding in database, applications, content management or business
intelligence through acquisitions or under its own auspices, Red Hat says it is likely to refer buyers to open-source partners.

The company could yet emerge as a tonic for those fearful of vendor lock-in and sick of the merger-and-acquisition roundabout.