In addition to launching RHEL 5 earlier this week, Red Hat previewed their forthcoming online marketplace Red Hat Exchange, or RHX. While no date has been announced, Red Hat has identified an initial set of partners which includes a who's who of leading commercial open source companies such as Alfresco, JasperSoft, MySQL, Pentaho, SugarCRM, Zimbra and Zmanda, among others. Under the Red Hat Exchange, customers will be able to buy support subscriptions for these products directly from Red Hat's web site giving newer companies direct access to Red Hat's installed base. And for Red Hat customers, they get the proverbial "one throat to choke" ensuring compatibility and integrated support.
RHX is the brainchild of long-time Red Hat employees Matt Mattox and Mike Evans and I expect more details will be coming in the months that follow. But in case it's not obvious, we're pretty jazzed about RHX at MySQL. Not only are most of the products powered by MySQL, but hey, guess what database Red Hat used to build RHX? Hint: It sure ain't Oracle!
Actually, RHX is Szulik's brainchild. He told Pete and Matt (and Mike) that he wanted an easier way for people to buy and consume open source software, and asked them to find a way. So, they came up with it, but Matthew instigated it.
Posted by: Matt Asay | March 16, 2007 at 12:57 PM