Red Hat has bought itself a Christmas present – privately held ManageIQ.
It’s paying $104 million in folding money for the pleasure of what appears to be a made-to-measure glove. The two seem to be a perfect fit. The deal might close by the end of the year.
Red Hat approached the six-year-old UK-based start-up around September when ManageIQ, already a Red Hat partner, was starting to look around for more money to finance a deeper plunge into the channel.
ManageIO says it’s “channel-ready” now and eager to get out there and mix it up.
It brings Red Hat the real-time cloud management and automation it lacks. It’s in the center of Red Hat’s three hot buttons: Red Hat’s KVM Enterprise Virtualization, CloudForms, Red Hat’s hybrid IaaS solution, and OpenStack. It’s got a hybrid cloud bias, which should suit Red Hat to a “T,” since it’s bet the farm on hybrid. And it says it can set up its tent in an enterprise and help coax the user off Red Hat’s hereditary enemy VMware and on to Red Hat’s cheaper alternative.