Red Hat unveils upgrades for partner autonomy & growth
Specialised Partner Programme
At the forefront of these developments is the Red Hat Specialised Partner Program, which seeks to acknowledge partners that have demonstrated significant expertise in advanced technologies such as automation, virtualisation, and artificial intelligence. The programme, formerly known as Partner Practise Accelerator, enables partners to earn validated recognition for their technical proficiency and service capabilities aligned with Red Hat's strategic technologies.
With this expansion, specialisations now extend beyond Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift, to include additional products like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and RHEL AI. Existing specialisation for Red Hat OpenShift will be broadened to cover specific focus areas, including virtualisation, containers, and application development. Qualified partners will be recognised under titles such as "Red Hat Specialised Partner - Mission Critical Automation" or "Red Hat Specialised Partner - AI Platform," based on their technical strengths. We encourage partners to reach out to their Red Hat partner account managers to explore these new specialisation opportunities and further differentiate themselves as leading service providers for Red Hat solutions.
Partner Demand Centre
Red Hat has also introduced the Red Hat Partner Demand Centre, an online platform aimed at providing partners with the capability to design and execute their own marketing campaigns. The self-serve platform enables partners to autonomously launch pre-built marketing campaigns, create registration pages for workshops and webinars, and jointly promote Red Hat solutions to their clients.
The core offerings of the platform include a dashboard for tracking campaign activities and leads, customisable content to allow partners to integrate their own branding, and a digital library featuring over 16 campaigns in nine languages. These features are intended to afford partners more control and insight into their marketing efforts, supporting flexible collaboration and tailored messaging. This platform is designed to provide partners with assisted control over their marketing efforts, providing them with joint branding and messaging.
Simplified incentives and tooling
The ongoing redesign of the partner experience incorporates enhancements to Red Hat's rebate strategy. The company reports an extension of existing rebates and the introduction of new incentives, primarily targeting the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift products, with the intention to boost partner profitability and accelerate product growth.
In addition, Red Hat is undertaking an overhaul of its digital tools, aimed at reducing complexity for partners, increasing visibility, and supporting smoother engagement. The new digital enhancements are expected to facilitate easier navigation and management of partnership requirements and rewards.
Business strategy and partner engagement
Stefanie Chiras, who contributed to the announcement, stated that the changes form part of a longer-term strategy to place the ecosystem at the centre of IT modernisation. Chiras wrote, "The epoch-making shift in the technology landscape, fueled by breakthroughs in AI and the dynamic world of virtualisation, is reshaping every industry. Red Hat's partner ecosystem is pivotal in helping customers navigate these seismic shifts and capitalise on emerging opportunities, which is why we are continuously refining Red Hat's global partner engagement experience with an ecosystem-driven approach to IT modernisation. Our transformation is rooted in three business enablers: a globally unified partner programme, streamlined partner incentives and an enhanced digital experience."
Chiras highlighted the goal of the new offerings: "With this transformation, we are providing greater autonomy for partners to benefit from more choice, clearer growth opportunities and stronger collaboration with each other and Red Hat."
Support and resources
Partners are advised to access the Red Hat Partner Connect portal or reach out to their partner account managers to learn more about these updates and check specific requirements or eligibility for the new programme and incentives. Information about rebates and training opportunities is available through the Red Hat Content Centre, and a revised Partner Engagement Experience Foundations course details the fundamental aspects of the partner programme.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Techday NZ
4 days ago
- Techday NZ
Red Hat named leader for multicloud container platforms by Forrester
Red Hat has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Multicloud Container Platforms, Q3 2025 report, based on its performance in the multicloud container platform market. Forrester's assessment The Forrester Wave report evaluated several vendors in the multicloud container platform market, focusing on both the current offering and company strategy categories. Red Hat was highlighted for scoring the highest among all evaluated vendors in these categories. The report described OpenShift as "a good fit for enterprises that prioritise support, reliability, and advanced engineering, particularly in regulated industries such as financial services." It also observed that "customers consistently praise Red Hat's enterprise-grade offerings and support, especially for managed services." Forrester noted Red Hat's capabilities in Kubernetes, saying, "Red Hat excels in core Kubernetes areas, offering robust operator options, powerful management, GitOps automation, and flexible interfaces via a GUI or command-line interface (CLI). OpenShift's SLAs of 99.95% for public cloud managed-service versions showcase Red Hat's capacity to engineer capabilities beyond those of native public cloud services." The report additionally stated, "Developers will find just about everything they need with Red Hat's above-par scores in developer experience, service and application catalogues, microservices, service mesh, DevOps automation, and integration." Technical focus and AI integration Beyond container management, Red Hat is extending its efforts in hybrid cloud solutions. The company is leveraging its stack - including Red Hat Enterprise Linux - to improve support for generative AI development and operations, with an emphasis on model serving and advanced inference. Customer priorities and market needs The report noted that OpenShift has demonstrated suitability for organisations operating in highly regulated industries, such as financial services, where support and reliability are considered essential. The platform's managed services, which offer defined service-level agreements, were singled out for positive feedback from customers. The importance of a strong enterprise support model for public cloud deployments was also highlighted in the analysis. Leadership statement Mike Barrett, Vice President & General Manager, Hybrid Cloud Platforms, Red Hat, said: "Red Hat continues to provide the leading platform for organisations navigating the complexities of multicloud environments. Being named a Leader in The Forrester WaveTM for Multicloud Container Platforms reinforces our commitment to delivering robust, enterprise-grade solutions that empower our customers to innovate with confidence across their hybrid cloud footprints. Our focus on core Kubernetes capabilities, strong developer experience and strategic AI integrations positions us well for the evolving needs of the market. Sovereign cloud, coupled with the digital independence required to get the most from AI, have made multicloud investments a leading priority for our global customers." Developer perspective The Forrester evaluation recognised Red Hat's OpenShift for the breadth of its support for developers, including tooling for DevOps automation, service catalogues, and integration features. The solution was described as delivering above-average scores in developer experience, microservices, and service mesh capabilities. Market context As enterprise IT organisations continue to adopt hybrid and multicloud strategies, platforms capable of delivering consistent operations and supporting evolving application needs are increasingly important. The 99.95% public cloud managed service SLA cited by Forrester underlines the attention to reliability and service continuity expected in this sector. Red Hat continues to broaden the reach of its hybrid cloud portfolio, applying the foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to support both traditional enterprise workloads and emerging technologies such as generative AI.
Techday NZ
5 days ago
- Techday NZ
Red Hat unveils upgrades for partner autonomy & growth
Red Hat has announced a series of updates to its global partner engagement experience, introducing new programmes and tools designed to support partners with greater autonomy, clearer growth avenues, and enhanced customer lifecycle support. Specialised Partner Programme At the forefront of these developments is the Red Hat Specialised Partner Program, which seeks to acknowledge partners that have demonstrated significant expertise in advanced technologies such as automation, virtualisation, and artificial intelligence. The programme, formerly known as Partner Practise Accelerator, enables partners to earn validated recognition for their technical proficiency and service capabilities aligned with Red Hat's strategic technologies. With this expansion, specialisations now extend beyond Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift, to include additional products like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and RHEL AI. Existing specialisation for Red Hat OpenShift will be broadened to cover specific focus areas, including virtualisation, containers, and application development. Qualified partners will be recognised under titles such as "Red Hat Specialised Partner - Mission Critical Automation" or "Red Hat Specialised Partner - AI Platform," based on their technical strengths. We encourage partners to reach out to their Red Hat partner account managers to explore these new specialisation opportunities and further differentiate themselves as leading service providers for Red Hat solutions. Partner Demand Centre Red Hat has also introduced the Red Hat Partner Demand Centre, an online platform aimed at providing partners with the capability to design and execute their own marketing campaigns. The self-serve platform enables partners to autonomously launch pre-built marketing campaigns, create registration pages for workshops and webinars, and jointly promote Red Hat solutions to their clients. The core offerings of the platform include a dashboard for tracking campaign activities and leads, customisable content to allow partners to integrate their own branding, and a digital library featuring over 16 campaigns in nine languages. These features are intended to afford partners more control and insight into their marketing efforts, supporting flexible collaboration and tailored messaging. This platform is designed to provide partners with assisted control over their marketing efforts, providing them with joint branding and messaging. Simplified incentives and tooling The ongoing redesign of the partner experience incorporates enhancements to Red Hat's rebate strategy. The company reports an extension of existing rebates and the introduction of new incentives, primarily targeting the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat OpenShift products, with the intention to boost partner profitability and accelerate product growth. In addition, Red Hat is undertaking an overhaul of its digital tools, aimed at reducing complexity for partners, increasing visibility, and supporting smoother engagement. The new digital enhancements are expected to facilitate easier navigation and management of partnership requirements and rewards. Business strategy and partner engagement Stefanie Chiras, who contributed to the announcement, stated that the changes form part of a longer-term strategy to place the ecosystem at the centre of IT modernisation. Chiras wrote, "The epoch-making shift in the technology landscape, fueled by breakthroughs in AI and the dynamic world of virtualisation, is reshaping every industry. Red Hat's partner ecosystem is pivotal in helping customers navigate these seismic shifts and capitalise on emerging opportunities, which is why we are continuously refining Red Hat's global partner engagement experience with an ecosystem-driven approach to IT modernisation. Our transformation is rooted in three business enablers: a globally unified partner programme, streamlined partner incentives and an enhanced digital experience." Chiras highlighted the goal of the new offerings: "With this transformation, we are providing greater autonomy for partners to benefit from more choice, clearer growth opportunities and stronger collaboration with each other and Red Hat." Support and resources Partners are advised to access the Red Hat Partner Connect portal or reach out to their partner account managers to learn more about these updates and check specific requirements or eligibility for the new programme and incentives. Information about rebates and training opportunities is available through the Red Hat Content Centre, and a revised Partner Engagement Experience Foundations course details the fundamental aspects of the partner programme.
Techday NZ
10-07-2025
- Techday NZ
Red Hat unveils no-cost Linux platform for business developers
Red Hat has introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers, offering business development teams self-service, no-cost access to its enterprise Linux platform for development and testing purposes. The new solution enables developers to work with the same production-grade operating system used in live environments, aiming to reduce dev-ops friction and streamline application lifecycles. Through the Red Hat Developer Program, eligible users will be able to provision up to 25 instances per person without incurring licensing costs or going through centralised IT processes. This move responds to the increasing complexity faced by organisations managing applications across physical, virtual, cloud, and edge locations - including those involving AI, cloud-native, and virtualised workloads. The current cybersecurity climate, marked by rising software vulnerabilities and supply chain threats, also highlights the need for consistency between development and production systems. Gunnar Hellekson, Vice President and General Manager of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat, outlined the reason for the new offering. "Modern developers need to be able to move at their own pace to deliver innovative applications, but must do so without increasing friction with IT operations teams or production systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers helps empower developers with direct access to the world's leading enterprise Linux platform without having to move through centralised IT channels, giving them a more consistent, reliable foundation that aligns with the business' demands for production-readiness." Under the terms of the new programme, each registered user can entitle up to 25 physical, virtual, or cloud-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux instances for internal business-focused development work. This scope is intended to help bridge the divide between development and operations teams, allowing business units and software creators access to the same secure environment that supports production applications. Platform features The package includes curated and signed developer content, covering widely-used open source programming languages, tools, and databases required for new enterprise application development. Podman Desktop, Red Hat's preferred open source container development tool, is also integrated. This feature allows developers to build, test and create bootable container images using the same tooling available to production systems. Users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers can also purchase optional Red Hat Developer Support subscriptions, offering additional backed support and access to Red Hat's expertise in enterprise Linux. Broader accessibility Red Hat has designed this offering for business unit developers who may not have direct involvement with traditional IT departments. Teams can now initiate new projects, run early-stage testing, and develop software in the same environment as production, which is expected to ease the transition of applications into live deployment and lower barriers between teams during the application lifecycle. The initiative sits alongside Red Hat's existing developer programmes. The previously available no-cost Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals is intended for personal, non-commercial use. Red Hat also provides a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Subscription for Teams, which includes a wide range of content and is available to larger enterprises via account representatives or partners. Addressing market needs The release comes as organisations increasingly operate across hybrid and multi-cloud environments, demanding consistent platforms to help maintain reliability and security. Red Hat's Product Security Risk Report indicates a sustained upward trend in software vulnerabilities and supply chain risks, reinforcing the necessity of a hardened, predictable platform for both development and operations staff. Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers is now generally available to business development users aiming to create, test and iteratively improve enterprise applications on the same foundation as their production systems.
