Red Hat bullish about China's digital transformation drive

Both government and companies are leveraging open source market, it says

US-based open source solutions provider Red Hat has expressed confidence in the vibrant Chinese market, saying it is worthwhile to invest in the nation in the long term.

"China is very important for our business in terms of the company's overall strategy. The APAC region has a strong position in Red Hat's overall business, and within that region, China is critical," Marjet Andriesse, general manager and senior vice-president of Red Hat APJC, told China Daily. "The fact that there is so much demand in China makes it worthwhile for us to invest here."

The other reason, she said, why the Chinese market is so important for Red Hat is because of the way the country embraces open source, with both the government and companies investing big in digital transformation and leveraging open source to drive it.

The country has highlighted the role of open source in driving the software industry and in construction of a Digital China in its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for the software and information technology services sector.

By 2025, China aims to build two to three open source communities with international influence and cultivate more than 10 high-quality open source projects, according to the plan.

Andriesse also emphasized the emergence of open source talent in the Chinese market, and said that one of the largest research and development centers is based in the country because of its large talent pool.

Data from CSDN, a leading developer community in China, showed that the number of Chinese developers registered in 2022 was 35 million. Of these, up to 94 percent have used open source and 42 percent have participated in open source projects.

"Despite the shadow of a global economic downturn, the company is seeing healthy growth in the Chinese market, and is still growing," she said.

Red Hat, which entered China in 2004, has operations spanning hybrid cloud infrastructure, cloud-native application development, automation and management. Its businesses cover 40 countries and regions.

"With our open hybrid platform, which includes RHEL operating system Red Hat OpenShift and the Ansible automation platform, we are absolutely in a good space to help companies go on that journey," Andriesse said.

On market speculation that multinational companies were retreating from China, she said that Red Hat will continue to invest in the country and that its open source technology is robust in the domestic market.

"We are also seeing a lot of companies in China interested in our open source technology, either within the country or globally. We are very excited and bullish about supporting these companies that want to go into foreign markets," she added.

Red Hat has made significant investments in China, including offering Red Hat Training online learning courses.

Chinese companies and IT professionals can build critical skills within critical areas of Red Hat open source solutions across key fields, including cloud computing, containerization, virtualization and automation.

"We want to train as many people as we can on open source and get them accreditation. We've invested in the market because we want to continue to be one of the largest training companies in China to train people on open source and on our Red Hat technology," she said.

Victor Tsao, president of Red Hat Greater China, said the company is bullish about the prospects of the Chinese market, and the opportunities brought on by the open source community.

"It is really an open, transparent community that developers from anywhere in the world can contribute. It is the open source community that can really drive some innovations or breakthroughs," Tsao said.

Compared with other open source companies, he said Red Hat — being fully open source — serves as a catalyst for IT innovation in China and as a bridge for internal and external communication.

It also makes it easier for enterprises to use as clients only pay a subscription fee.

Jiang Hua, head of IT order to delivery at BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd, said the company has leveraged Red Hat's solution series to effectively dismantle the barriers between automation and information systems, significantly reducing the cost of future automation system development and easing the implementation of flexible manufacturing.