After closing 2017 with a bang for the open source space, Red Hat raises the ante further; in fact, it is looking to achieve this by continuing to push its positive pacing from last year. Results from Q4 2018 include generating a total revenue of US$772 million; this contributes to the total revenue of US$2.9 billion, adding to the 21% year-on-year.
For Damien Wong, Vice President and General Manager, Red Hat Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong, it’s about driving consistency. Critical to this is the development of new processes that will continue this positive transformation. “It’s been continuous growths for Red Hat in each quarter, consistent for the last 64 quarters. There is so much to do and we believe that Red Hat can only go to the next level; this is all thanks to how digital adoption is progressing in this region. The rate of growth here is amazing due to how quickly businesses are quick to transform themselves digitally,” Wong shares.
Businesses in Asia are now facing digital disruption, just like everywhere else. That factor alone is spurring Red Hat to consider what it can do to stay ahead of the curve. While Red Hat raises the ante, it closely tracks and follows how this region is empowering itself; specifically with digital platforms and services. These changes that Red Hat is witnessing, according to Wong, is what drives current disruptions.
“Companies need to take advantage of these new innovations and make it their own so they can survive. This includes looking into new services that provide on-demand services and creating convergence of platforms and services. All these changes must provide new avenues for the streamlining processes. At the same time, it must also enable growth to occur,” adds Wee Luen Chia, General Manager, Red Hat ASEAN.
In regards to how Red Hat raises the ante for the ICT industry, both share similar sentiments; they believe the ICT landscape will continue to evolve in the coming months. For Wong, this is partially due to the acceleration of companies adopting open source platforms.
“These trends include continuous innovation as businesses realise that incremental innovation is just not enough anymore; strong spending for IT is on the cards as Gartner predicts Malaysia’s IT spending will increase by 5.7%. That translates to growth that will likely reach RM65.2 billion for 2018, compared with RM61.6 billion last year,” Wong shares.
For Red Hat, IT is the core driver for business growth and will accelerate. This is thanks to new trends like upward mobile adoption and next-gen consumer behaviours. In fact, technology and innovation will introduce new capabilities that can better engage the digital native.
“This is all part of digital economy transformation that Malaysia is now experiencing,” Wong notes.
Wee concurs as he also points to how the Southeast Asia region is now ready to lead in this space. “As is, we’re extremely bullish for SEA and believe it’s a nascent and young corner of the globe. It’ll be the region to watch as it has a huge buzz for the digital economy; in fact, it will make 2018 very exciting,” he shares.
