Red Hat Woos Open Source Partners with Perks

As part of its nascent efforts to develop a channel strategy for its open source subscription services, Red Hat has rolled out a technical training promotion along with other enablement initiatives aimed at solution providers.

The promotion is aimed at training existing and potential partners on Red Hat's recently acquired JBoss open source technologies. Solution providers will receive 30 percent off training on the JBoss application server, other infrastructure and services, according to Todd Barr, director of marketing for the enterprise at Red Hat.

It's just one piece of a broader support model for Red Hat partners, Barr added.

"There are many things. We have a collaboration portal for developers that we will be making available to VARs with application development bent to them, for example," he said. "We want to create a solid ecosystem platform."

Building out a channel marks a departure for Red Hat. The Linux distribution player has been historically direct, and still maintains a direct play in largescale accounts. Nonetheless, it is ratcheting up efforts to enlist partners to resell its package of open source support subscriptions.Other benefits to partners include a forthcoming online JBoss sales training program, go to market enablement collateral to, among other things, help partners customize their own lead generation programs, and finally, additional developer support.