Thursday, June 24, 2004
Red Hat plans Indian subsidiary
KALYAN PARBAT
KOLKATA: Red Hat, which is at the vanguard of the global open source movement, is floating a wholly-owned Indian subsidiary to step up mass localisation of Linux operating systems.
Red Hat's objective is to counter Microsoft's Windows localisation drive in India through distribution of cheaper Linux-based enterprise applications to traditional takers of expensive proprietary software.
Small wonder then, that the proposed Indian subsidiary will run one of Red Hat's largest global support centres, which is likely to be based out of Pune or Bangalore. Currently, Red Hat has three Linux global support centres - in Brisbane, Surrey and Raleigh (North Carolina).
Linux OS localisation will initially happen in seven Indian languages - Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telegu and Tamil.
Incidentally, this will be Red Hat's second subsidiary in India. Red Hat holds 60% in its existing arm, Red Hat India, with the remaining 40% held by Mumbai-based Clover Technologies and technocrat Javed Tapia, who is also Red Hat India's director.
A Red Hat team led by Barry Duplantis, who heads Red Hat's global support operations out of the US, will be in India this July to take a call on the location of the India development centre.
"Red Hat is considering a 100% subsidiary in India to run its proposed global support centre. The two Indian subsidiaries will work closely. A decision on the locations of the global support centre will be taken before July 15 by the US parent," Mr Tapia told ET.
Red Hat's Brisbane support centre is already involved in localisation of Linux OS in multiple Asian languages. Accordingly, the proposed India unit will work closely with the Brisbane team. "Since Red Hat, Brisbane, has the technical resources for Linux localisation in Asian languages, it will lend software engineering support to the Indian team. The Bengali and Hindi versions are due by January '05," said Mr Tapia.
At the moment, Red Hat India is putting in place a 250-member software engineering team that is well-trained in Linux applications. "Despite having the world's second largest software developer pool, India isn't a net contributor to the open source movement. In that sense, Red Hat is a late entrant and the Linux OS localisation drive is aimed precisely to address this," added Mr Tapia.
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