IBM is acquiring Red Hat for $34 billion USD, largest software acquisition ever

International Business Machines Corporation and Red Hat Incorporated have announced that Red Hat will be acquired for $34 billion United States dollars. This is the largest software acquisition ever made. Before this, Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion USD was the largest software acquisition.

The press release by Red Hat mentions that it will operate as a "distinct unit" in IBM's Hybrid Cloud team. The release also states that this will allow Red Hat Enterprise Linux to maintain its commitment to open source development and its unique development culture.

In an interview with Reuters, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty states that this acquisition, which is IBM's attempt to compete with Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services in the cloud infrastructure space, is because "Red Hat is one of the very few companies in the cloud computing sector that has both revenue growth and free cash flow."

Red Hat's current CEO, Jim Whitehurst, will maintain his position with the rest of the management team. He will also become a part of IBM's senior management team reporting to Ginni Rometty directly. There have been no announcements concerning any change in the sponsorship of Fedora or other open source projects.

Further coverage: IBM News Room Red Hat Press Release Blog post by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst Blog post by Red Hat Executive Vice president and President of Products and Technologies Paul Cormier Business Insider Engadget Reuters TechCrunch The Verge