Reflecting On 2014, Looking Ahead To 2015

It is confirmed: 2014 has been a great year for Red Hat. Yesterday, we announced third quarter results of our fiscal year 2015 and, with that, celebrated our 51st consecutive quarter of revenue growth - more than 12 years of consecutive revenue growth. Thank you to the team of Red Hat customers, partners, open source contributors, and associates around the world, for helping us propel Red Hat to new heights. While 2014 has been a fantastic year for Red Hat, it has also been a banner year for open source.

Today, it is almost impossible to name a major player in IT that has not embraced open source. Only a few short years ago, many would have argued we would never see that day. Many of us remember the now infamous “Halloween Documents,” the classic quote from former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer describing Linux as a “cancer,” and comments made by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, saying, “So certainly we think of [Linux] as a competitor in the student and hobbyist market. But I really do not think in the commercial market, we'll see it [compete with Windows] in any significant way.”

This year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's public statement, "Microsoft loves Linux", was a huge milestone for open source. I applaud Microsoft – and others – for recognizing the undeniable force of community-powered innovation...