Expected to be the final Red Hat Summit before its acquisition by IBM Corp. closes, the annual open-source conference will be a nostalgic mix of sharing work cultures while building new norms.

Representing this transition will be the keynote speakers, spanning the leadership across both companies. Sharing the stage over the course of the summit will be IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty and Red Hat Inc. CEO Jim Whitehurst. In acknowledgment of Red Hat’s collaborative culture of open source, Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella will also keynote at this week’s event.

What will be the new culture of the new Red Hat once its IBM status is complete? Big Blue is known for facilitating something of a full assimilation after acquiring a company, but IBM and Red Hat maintain that this acquisition will be different.   

“The way IBM positions things when this deal closes is, Red Hat is still Red Hat. They’re not going to Blue Wash Red Hat employees,” said Wikibon Inc. senior analyst Stu Miniman, going on to share what he’s heard from Red Hat. “When you talk to Red Hat teams, they’re saying, ‘We’re told we’re staying apart, but we’ve also been working together for 15 years.’ Yes things will change, but it’s not like Red Hat and IBM employees will have to introduce themselves to each other,” Miniman said.

That preservation of culture is critical to Red Hat’s success in open-source services. Its commitment to freely shared and collaborative software has put Red Hat ahead of the curve in supporting modern multicloud environments. This is also Red Hat’s appeal for IBM, willing to pay upwards of $33 billion for the open-source specialist. So what’s next for IBM and Red Hat?

Looking to answer this and other questions, SiliconANGLE Media Inc. is at Red Hat Summit in Boston with exclusive commentary and interviews from its livestreaming studio theCUBE. TheCUBE coverage will begin today, May 7, at 10 a.m. EDT and ends on Thursday, May 9, at 5 p.m. EDT. (* Disclosure below.)

All roads lead back to Linux

The open-source operating system Linux remains at the core of Red Hat and will be the likely focus for discussions and messaging at Red Hat Summit, even as the IBM-Red Hat acquisition reaches a close. Recent years have seen an uptick in Red Hat’s Kubernetes-related products, such as OpenShift for managing containerized software applications across clouds, alongside ongoing updates to its famed OpenStack platform for cloud management and Ansible for automating information technology tasks. Through it all, Red Hat remains adaptable for ever-evolving enterprise computing needs, anticipating today’s hybrid world of public cloud providers and private and on-premises servers.

Whether it’s a public or private cloud, “Red Hat is already there, thanks to Linux. If Amazon Web Services keeps winning the public cloud, Red Hat still wins. If Microsoft or Google ramp up market share in public cloud, Red Hat still wins. If private cloud ends up regaining market share, Red Hat still wins,” said Miniman, noting OpenShift’s 1,000-plus customer base as evidence for the enterprise demand for application modernization.

Thanks to Red Hat’s position in open source, the company is something of a Switzerland in the competitive and proprietary world of computing. With so few enemies, Red Hat’s primary challenge is to keep up with changing market demands and maintain an innovative culture, especially now that it’s part of IBM, according to Miniman.

“Yes there is the threat of public cloud platforms extending their own Linux services, but these are emerging threats, not direct competitors,” Miniman stated. “Innovation and culture are key to Red Hat, and it’s something IBM shouldn’t kill.”

How to watch theCUBE interviews

We offer you various ways to watch all of theCUBE interviews that will be taking place at Red Hat Summit 2019, including theCUBE’s dedicated website and YouTube. You can also get all the coverage from this year’s event on SiliconANGLE.

TheCUBE’s dedicated website and Ustream

All of theCUBE’s exclusive interviews from Red Hat Summit 2019 will be available on theCUBE’s dedicated website.

You can also watch all the interviews on the dedicated Ustream channel.

Watch on the SiliconANGLE YouTube channel

All of theCUBE interviews from Red Hat Summit, which runs from May 7-9, will also be loaded onto SiliconANGLE’s dedicated YouTube channel.

TheCUBE Insights podcast

SiliconANGLE also has podcasts available of archived interview sessions, available on both iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, which you can enjoy while on the go.

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE at the Red Hat Summit

Guests who will be interviewed on theCUBE include Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO, Red Hat; Stefanie Chiras, vice president and general manager, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Business Unit, Red Hat; Dr. Christoph Baeck, head of IT infrastructure, Hilti Corp.; Marco Bill-Peter, senior vice president, customer experience and engagement, Red Hat; Vasily Chekalkin, principal software engineer, Singtel Optus Pty. Ltd.; Paul Cormier, executive vice president and president, products and technologies, Red Hat; Leigh Day, vice president, marketing communications and brand, Red Hat; David Gledhill, group chief information officer and head of group technology and operations, DBS Bank; Robin Goldstone, HPC solutions architect, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Guillaume Poulet-Mathis, senior innovation manager, Optus; and Chris Wright, vice president and chief technology officer, Red Hat.

Also being interviewed are Arvind Krishna, SVP, cloud and cognitive software at IBM; Ashesh Badani, SVP, cloud platforms, Red Hat; DeLisa Alexander, executive vice president and chief people officer, Red Hat; Gunnar Hellekson, director and product management, Red Hat; Joe Fitzgerald, VP and GM, Management Business Unit, Red Hat; Marco Bill-Peter, SVP, Red Hat; Mark Little, VP of engineering, Red Hat; and Mike Piech, VP and GM Middleware, Red Hat.

Other guests include Niall Fitzgerald, IT applications, Spark New Zealand Ltd.; Eric Kern, executive distinguished engineer, Lenovo Group Ltd.; Paul Cormier, EVP of engineering, Red Hat; Reza Shafii, VP and GM, platform services, OpenShift, Red Hat; Robin Goldstone, HPC strategic planning and architecture, Advanced Technologies Office at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Scott McCarty, principal product manager, containers, Red Hat.

(* Disclosure: Some segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE are sponsored. Sponsors have no editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Red Hat