Open source software giant Red Hat launches first blockchain project

Red Hat today officially announced its first blockchain project, OpenShift, with the goal of helping financial companies working in the industry and conducting experiments related to this emerging technology.

With OpenShift Blockchain, Red Hat customers can create hosted blockchain applications using tools provided by independent solution vendors (ISVs) while enjoying the company's managed support services.

In an interview, Julio Tapia, Red Hat’s director of OpenShift partnership ecosystem, positioned the announcement as the company’s first application of open source experience to the blockchain market, as Red Hat also joined the Hyperledger blockchain project in February.

Julio Tapia

Tapia told CoinDesk:

“We don’t just want to position ourselves as a customer and partner, but we want to develop solutions across the entire ecosystem, taking all the innovation in the industry, nurturing it into a mature enterprise market, and making sure all solutions are launched and supported.”

Through the new blockchain program, customers will be able to access OpenShift’s proprietary offerings in addition to tools, training workshops, actionable materials and content from third-party vendors, he said.

Tapia believes that Red Hat's blockchain is very competitive, and many mainstream financial services companies have expressed their willingness to launch blockchain applications in the cloud.

Tapia explained:

“Many people in the market are exploring the deployment of blockchain on large cloud services, such as those provided by Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Many enterprises provide cloud support,”

Tapia also clarified that OpenShift's dedicated products are already available on Amazon and will soon support Google and Microsoft Azure. Many companies want to buy and use these cloud service platforms, and Red Hat will manage them for customers, Tapia said.

Red Hat’s entry into the ecosystem comes at a time when many companies are offering similar enterprise-grade services. For example, Jeff Garzik, a former Red Hat employee, recently launched Bloq, a startup he called “the Red Hat of blockchain” because of its approach to managing software services.

Red Hat is best known for its services dedicated to the open source Linux operating system, and currently has annual revenue of more than $2 billion.

Continue to pay attention

Tapia said Red Hat is expanding OpenShift blockchain capabilities as interest in the technology continues to grow.

Tapia continued:

“A lot of companies are exploring deploying new solutions to meet the needs in this area. We’ve been hearing a lot about that. We want to make sure we’re at the forefront,”

Tapia did not comment much on expectations and predictions for the market, but he believes the industry is in a "breakout period."

We see a lot of interesting use cases being developed, from naming and registration to patent management,” he said.

He went on to suggest that the company is preparing for growth in this area:

“That’s how big markets start, and we want to make the proper investments and become a recognized platform.”

No restrictions

The announcement follows Red Hat’s launch of BlockApps’ product STRATO on OpenShift in February, which also saw the addition of a product from ethereum decentralized application studio ConsenSys.

Tapia said the reason BlockApps was included in the announcement was because of ConsenSys, which was one of the first companies to reach out to Red Hat to collaborate. ConsenSys will not be the only company to accept, Tapia said.

Other companies have applied so far, but Tapia did not disclose other details.

He said:

“It’s still early days and a lot of partners are still building products,”

There will be a degree of review of the application, but Tapia declined to disclose any specific review criteria. As Microsoft gradually expands its Azure platform, Red Hat is also working towards openness and platformization, and it will not be difficult to join.

“We don’t have any specific hard requirements,” he added.

“It’s still too early at this stage.”

Original article: http://www.coindesk.com/open-source-giant-red-hat-blockchain-initiative/
Translator: Next
Editor: Kyle
Bitcoin address: 1Mwmes1CAwgvy5SEpjPAkbnp94BYtsRw66
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/bitcoin-core-outside-funding)