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Red Hat Looks at Innovation in a Different Way

Posted by on 23 June 2008
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On Friday, we posted about how Microsoft is opening a new innovation center in Taiwan. Recently at PC World, they take a look at how Red Hat is innovating their software. Jim Whitehurst, the president and CEO of Red Hat has different views on innovation and open source technology. Green innovation has also become a priority at Red Hat, along with encouraging their users to continually innovate the product to suit their needs. A lot of companies prefer not to share their code, due to the fact that they see revenue tied directly to the programs they've developed.
Red Hat has a different view on innovation from what we read about Microsoft in last week's post. They focus on involving their community of users, such as developers, customers and testers. Involving these people in the innovation of their product increases their innovation. Whitehurst also feels this helps in minimizing their carbon footprint due to the fact that they aren't operating from a single office.
When companies accept that the combination of community innovation and the open source model should be accessible to all customers, costs decrease and innovation increases.
Red Hat looks at their contributors as a true part of their innovation community. Not only do they involve their users in their innovation processes, but they are contributing to the environment by adopting a more green way to run their business.

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