In computing, Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) is a company dedicated to free and open source software, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1995, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide.

Some users associate the company primarily with its enterprise operating system Red Hat Enterprise Linux; others with the acquisition of open-source enterprise middleware vendor JBoss. Red Hat provides operating-system platforms along with middleware, applications, and management solutions, as well as support, training, and consulting services.

History

In 1993 Bob Young incorporated the ACC Corporation, a catalog business that sold Linux and UNIX software accessories. In 1994 Marc Ewing created his own Linux distribution, which he named Red Hat Linux. Ewing released it in October, and it became known as the Halloween release. Young bought Ewing's business in 1995, and the two merged to become Red Hat Software, with Young serving as CEO.

Red Hat went public on August 11, 1999, the eighth-biggest first-day gain in Wall Street history.Fact: date=June 2008 Matthew Szulik succeeded Bob Young as CEO in November of that year.

On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions. Cygnus provided commercial support for free software and housed maintainers of GNU software products such as the GNU Debugger and GNU binutils. One of the founders, Michael Tiemann, served as the chief technical officer of Red Hat and now serves as the vice president of open source affairs. Later Red Hat acquired WireSpeed, C2Net and Hell's Kitchen Systems.Fact: date=August 2008

In February 2000, InfoWorld awarded Red Hat with its fourth consecutive "Operating System Product of the Year" award for Red Hat Linux 6.1. Red Hat acquired Planning Technologies, Inc in 2001 and in 2004 AOL's iPlanet directory and certificate-server software.

The company moved its headquarters from Durham, NC, to N.C. State University's Centennial Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina in February 2002.

The following March Red Hat introduced the first enterprise-class Linux operating system : Red Hat Advanced Server, later re-named Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Dell, IBM, HP and the Oracle Corporation announced their support of the platform.Fact: date=May 2008

In December 2005 CIO Insight magazine conducted its annual Vendor Value Survey, in which Red Hat ranked #1 in value for the second year in a row.Fact: date=August 2008

Red Hat stock became part of the NASDAQ-100 on December 19, 2005.

Red Hat acquired open-source middleware provider JBoss on June 5, 2006 and JBoss became a division of Red Hat. In 2007 Red Hat acquired MetaMatrix and made an agreement with Exadel to distribute its software.

On September 18, 2006, Red Hat released the Red Hat Application Stack, the first certified stack integrating JBoss technology.