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Red Hat buys French OpenStack specialist

Red Hat has bet big on OpenStack as it tries to cut its Linux dependence.

Red Hat has bet big on OpenStack as it tries to cut its Linux dependence. OpenStack's backers, which also include Rackspace, IBM, and HP, argue the platform's open-source natures eliminates the vendor lock-in that comes from using cloud infrastructure services from the likes of Amazon (still towers over the market), Google, and Microsoft.ris-based eNovance to boost its enterprise OpenStack consulting, design and deployment.

As noted by IDC analysts Laura DuBois and Ashish Nadkarni in their recent recap of the spring 2014 OpenStack Summit, "Integrators such as eNovance will continue to assist cloud service providers and enterprises in building large OpenStack clouds. ... The future for OpenStack is looking very bright. The next Summit in Paris, France, will take OpenStack to the next phase of its fascinating journey to become a de facto cloud OS."

Founded in 2008 by Raphaël Ferreira, Nicolas Marchal and Pierre Molin, eNovance can help service providers and large-scale private enterprises build and deploy cloud infrastructures quickly and cost effectively.

Like Red Hat, eNovance is at part of the OpenStack community, being one of the top 10 contributors to the upstream OpenStack project, and is the only European Gold Member company of the OpenStack Foundation. eNovance has more than 150 global customers, including Alcatel-Lucent, AXA, Cisco, Cloudwatt, and Ericsson. The company has offices in Paris; Montreal; and Bangalore, India.

Red Hat has bet big on OpenStack as it tries to cut its Linux dependence. OpenStack's backers, which also include Rackspace, IBM, and HP, argue the platform's open-source natures eliminates the vendor lock-in that comes from using cloud infrastructure services from the likes of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

Red Hat and eNovance first partnered in 2013 to deliver OpenStack implementation and integration services to joint customers, helping to accelerate adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. Most recently, in May 2014, the two companies announced an expanded collaboration to drive Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and telecommunications innovations into OpenStack, aimed at delivering the industry’s most complete, carrier-grade telecommunications offering based on Linux, Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), and OpenStack.

Red Hat has agreed to acquire eNovance, a privately-held company, for approximately €50m in cash and €20m in shares of Red Hat common stock, subject to certain adjustments at closing. The transaction is expected to close in June 2014, subject to customary closing conditions.

Raphaël Ferreira, co-founder & chief executive officer, eNovance
“eNovance, like Red Hat, understands the transformative power OpenStack can have on the enterprise market when it is both deployed and integrated in the right fashion. We are excited to become part of Red Hat, a company that not only offers one of the best-in-class OpenStack distributions on the market today, but also which shares our common belief that OpenStack is best deployed and integrated in a continuous and seamless manner. This shared philosophy, combined with our mutual deep expertise and capabilities will help us achieve our initial goal from the very founding of the company, which was to bring the power and openness of OpenStack to the broadest global audience possible.”