RALEIGH – The deal making at Red Hat may not be over yet despite the Raleigh firm’s decision to accept a $34 billion buyout from IBM.
Stiefel, a Wall Street investment firm, says that Google could make a bid for Red Hat. The deal has yet to close. The two firms announced the deal on Oct. 28.
Red Hat would have to pay nearly $1 billion to break from the IBM offer.
Big Blue opens its arms, wallet, to Red Hat, but did deal cost too much at $34B?
IBM and Red Hat have said that Red Hat would remain a distinct unit within IBM.
Based on a review of a filing that shows three companies beyond IBM looked at buying Red Hat, Stiefel believes that Google, Amazon and Microsoft were shopping for the Hatters.
IBM, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are all major players in cloud computing.
Has Red Hat’s Jim Whitehurst set himself up to succeed CEO Rometty at IBM?
And Big Blue’s Ginni Rometty, its chair as well as CEO, has said the deal for Red Hat is to form a potent competitor in the hybrid cloud business where customers maintain a mix of their own servers as well as servers provided by a second party.
“The firm thinks Google could circle back and make another offer for Red Hat now that Google Cloud is under new management,” says business news site Seeking Alpha.
Diane Greene, CEO of Google’s cloud business, announced her departure last month. She will be replaced by Oracle executive Thomas Kurian early next year.
Red Hat expands its hybrid cloud offerings with NooBaa acquisition
