Red Hat

Company: Red Hat
Company Description: Red Hat is the premier Linux and open source provider. We serve global enterprises through technology and services made possible by the open source model. Solutions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating platforms, sold through a subscription model, and a broad range of suppport services. Red Hat is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. and has offices worldwide.
Nomination Category: Company, Office & Product Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Innovative Company

Nomination Title: Red Hat

Tell the story about what this nominated company achieved in 2003 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

What began as a better way to build software--openness, transparency,
collaboration--soon shifted the balance of power in an entire industry. The
revolution continues. Today Red Hat is the world's most trusted provider of
Linux and open source technology. And that technology is pervasive, running
systems of all sizes, and, more than ever, powering mission-critical computing
in the enterprise.

Red Hat's success is defined by an unwavering commitment to its four core
values: Freedom, Courage, Commitment, Accountability.  While this commitment
keeps Red Hat in a constant state of change -- the balance shifting and always
righting itself -- it also firmly roots us to a greater sense of purpose and
responsibility.  We have a social mission to our community. We have a financial
responsibility to our shareholders. The balance breeds the success of a company
grounded on the cutting edge.

Uncommon corporate culture – the biggest small company in the world, cutting
edge technology, and a commitment to a business model where only the best of
the best technology wins puts Red Hat on the high road to becoming the Defining
Technology Company of the 21st Century, a company ambition personally put forth
and often underscored by Red Hat Chairman, President and CEO Matthew Szulik.

More than a just a buzz phrase, at Red Hat, the goal of being the Defining
Technology Company of the 21st Century is a lifestyle.  And in 2003, as a result
of its own unstoppable, accelerating momentum, Red Hat took a giant step closer
to making that goal a reality.  Moving beyond the operating system towards a
complete enterprise solution, Red Hat rolled out Open Source Architecture.

All the while, through the Red Hat-sponsored, community-supported Fedora
Project, Red Hat continued to remain  committed to its roots in the innovative
open source community of developers that raised linux from its infancy as a
hobbyist operating system to the mature OS now trusted by seven of 10 banks on
Wall Street.

Red Hat's enterprise momentum was undeniably gaining speed in spring of 2003
with the premier of  the Red Hat Application  family of products, bringing to
the application space the same extraordinary low cost, high value benefits
proven with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and a new global partnership with Fujitsu
as well as the expansion and strengthening of partnerships with Oracle, IBM,
Dell, Intel, and HP.

In September, on the heels of the company's second profitable quarter, Red Hat
announced a long-term statement of direction to create a comprehensive and
flexible enterprise architecture driven by open source technology. Drawing from
community planning, technology round-tables, and customer meetings, Red Hat's
Open Source Architecture (OSA) will provide value to the customer through a
secure, scalable, and manageable infrastructure for deploying enterprise
business applications, allowing customers to extend the unique value and control
offered by the open source approach throughout their organization.

Later that fall, with the support of 11 industry peers, Red Hat delivered the
first proof point in the long-term strategy of delivering an Open Source
Architecture:  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL 3).  Emphasizing scalability,
performance and extended system coverage, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 provides
a
stable operating system platform that enables customers to realize the benefits
of open source solutions across their complete computing infrastructure - from
the desktop to the largest server.

Red Hat continued to scale out the OSA and closed 2003 with the acquisition of
Sistina Software, a leading storage infrastructure software company. Concurrent
with Red Hat's Open Source Architecture strategy, the acquisition provides
Enterprise Linux customers a path to virtualization and vendor-independent
storage solutions.

Today, Red Hat's forward-thinking momentum continues to spur our freedom to
think beyond the present, courage to take risks and develop new ideas and
technology, commitment to open source innovation, and  accountability to
ourselves, our community, the industry, as well as our customers and
shareholders.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: List each link on a separate line, begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.website.com]:

http://www.idg.com.hk/cw/readstory.asp?aid=20030923001
http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/3097751
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1959190118&fp=2a&fpid=1
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2003/10/16/software_insurgent/
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5108894.html

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader of this nominated company:

Matthew Szulik has been leading early-stage technology companies, such as
Interleaf, MapInfo, and Red Hat, into global, publicly traded firms for more
than 20 years. In 1998, Szulik and Red Hat founder Bob Young developed a shared vision that the collaborative approach of open source and a great brand could redistribute the economics of the technology industry from vendor to customer.

Following successful public offerings in 1999 and 2000, Red Hat has developed
global partnerships with Oracle, IBM, Dell, Intel, and HP to deliver technology
based on open source technology.

Szulik is passionate about improving the educational opportunities for students
worldwide through open source, and he is a spokesperson to industry, government,
and education leaders on open source computing.