Much remains to be worked out. Red Hat plans to integrate Sistina into the company mainstream; it won't create a separate division to house its acquisition. But just what that means isn't yet clear, and it's too soon to talk specifics, according to Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day.
Among questions to be settled: how many of Sistina's employees, which now number approximately 45 between the startup's Minneapolis headquarters and offices in California and the U.K., will be taken aboard Red Hat, beyond the core engineering team. It also hasn't been determined whether Sistina CEO Ian Bonner and other members of the executive team will stay or jump ship.
It also remains to be seen exactly how the acquisition of Sistina will affect the ongoing set of complicated relationships in the Linux market. Red Hat's Day says the company plans to work to maintain Sistina's ISV (independent software vendor) relationships, including ones with Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) and SAP AG (NYSE/Frankfurt: SAP), which has invested in Sistina and also has a partnership with Red Hat (see SAP Takes Tiny Piece of Sistina). But it seems unlikely that SuSE Inc., a Red Hat competitor, will continue to promote integration of its wares through Red Hat.
Storage software provider BakBone Software Inc. (Toronto: BKB), which announced a partnership marketing relationship with Red Hat and other Linux players earlier this week, says the acquisition isn't a threat to other storage suppliers, and simply adds to the variety of solutions coalescing around Linux.
"Sistina is in the business of file systems and volume managers for Linux," says Jet Martin, director of product management at BakBone, who feels the move underscores the growing popularity of Linux in enterprise networks.
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