Former IBM executive joins Red Hat global management team

Mumbai:Red Hat Inc, (Nasdaq:RHAT), the world's premier open source and Linux provider, today announced that Stephen McWhirter, head of IBM's sales in Asia Pacific, has been appointed as vice president of Asia Pacific Operations. McWhirter will be responsible for regional sales and operations. The addition of McWhirter is further demonstration of Red Hat's commitment to the Asian market and yet an other step in our the company's global expansion strategy.

Till recently McWhirter was responsible for US$1B of net new revenues for IBM in the region. His previous management positions included director of Lotus Software, Asia Pacific and general manager, IBM Software, Asia Pacific.

"The addition of Stephen to our global operations team will accelerate the adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the countries that comprise Asia Pacific," said Alex Pinchev, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Red Hat. "Stephen's enterprise experience will be a great asset as customer demand continues to grow in this region."

"It is no secret that Red Hat has become a worldwide standard in computing," said Stephen McWhirter. "I look forward to driving the company's growth and sales expansion, this is an exciting time for Red Hat and the entire open source movement."