“The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer, “ says IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, “IBM will become the world’s No. 1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.”

Hybrid cloud means interlinked private/public clouds coupled to in-house data centres.

IBM, once seen as the natural prospective leader in cloud services provision, has lost out badly as a cloud services provider to Amazon and Microsoft

Microsoft, Dell and others see hybrid cloud as a big growth market. Red Hat’s shares have grown 170% in the last five years.

 Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst and the current management team will continue to lead Red Hat says IBM, retaining the Red Hat HQ and brands.