Red Hat to expand India operations
Friday, 04 April 2003, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Red Hat, which calls itself the world's largest and most recognised provider of open source technologies, is expanding operations in India. Red Hat is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, and has offices worldwide. It launched operations in India in December 2000. Unlike proprietorial software, Free/Libre and Open Source Software can be freely shared, copied, distributed and modified. Though it need not be free of price, the fact that it can be copied makes free software -- including the GNU/Linux system -- affordable and stable. "With the awareness and increase in the adoption of Linux in India, Red Hat has witnessed an astounding 100 percent growth (year on year)," the company said. It has set up offices in New Delhi and Bangalore. Srinivas Garinela has been appointed as senior enterprise sales manager and will look after the New Delhi market. A support centre to cater to the needs of the government is also being set up. Rohit Rai has been appointed as manager-enterprise sales and will oversee the Bangalore operations. Red Hat has also moved into a larger office in Nariman Point to accommodate the increase in its staff in Mumbai. The company is also identifying more technology as well as distribution partners across India to support customers locally. Its training centres offer corporate training, regular courses and the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) Rapid Track Training and Certification Course. The first such centre is located in Pune. Red Hat operates through a network of training partners who in turn provide training in 80 centres across India. Argues Javed Tapia, the India director for Red Hat: "(GNU) Linux has now gone mainstream. Every enterprise and government organization is looking at Linux as part of its IT strategy. Red Hat has spared no efforts to build the confidence of enterprises in Linux and the services model we follow." Red Hat India claims that in just two years of setting up base in this country, it has developed sophisticated support services, training, consulting and engineering and channel development. "We will continue to drive a 100 percent (year-on-year) growth," said a confident Tapia.
Source: IANS
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