Ending weeks of speculation, IBM has announced that it will let RedHat, the open source solutions company that it acquired for $34 billion, to work independently.

Ginni Rometty, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM, made this clear while speaking at the keynote session at the RedHat Summit here.

“RedHat will stay independent. I want them to be successful,” she said, while interacting with Jim Whitehurst, CEO, RedHat.

Open source software developers, vendors, representatives of IT firms that work on RedHat solutions, and other stakeholders gathered here for the three-day annual conference.

The open source solutions firm has just undergone a brand makeover after 19 years. Bidding adieu to the ‘Shadowman’ that it is associated with for two decades, RedHat has gone for a ‘red hat’ for its new logo ahead of the completion of its acquisition by IBM.

Rometty further said that IBM has not bought RedHat to destroy it, indirectly referring to concerns that it will absorb the company.

“I don’t have a death wish (on the investment that IBM has made to acquire Red Hat),” she said.

Her assertion on RedHat’s future, analysts say, is a deliberate attempt to clear doubts in the ecosystem about the future of RedHat and how the target company is managed post acquisition.

“The idea seems to have put doubts to rest...the big brother is not going to influence RedHat’s functioning,” an analyst said.

While interacting with the reporters earlier, Whitehurst indicated that the company will have a free hand going forward.

“Pending regulatory approvals for the acquisition from the EU and a couple of other geographies, we can’t talk like one entity. But what I can say is all of RedHat products will survive in their current form,” he said.

The writer is in Boston at the invitation of RedHat

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