Red Hat Partners with Nokia for Telecom Servers, Moves to the Big Board

Published: November 28, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Commercial Linux distributor Red Hat and telecom giant Nokia announced just before the Thanksgiving holiday in America that they had formed a partnership that will see the two work together on carrier-grade, Linux-based telecommunications servers.

Specifically, the deal means that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the preferred operating system platform for Nokia's Networks Business Group, which makes a telecom switching and application system called FlexiPlatform. Such platforms are what so-called 3G telecom services such as text messaging, videos, and such are delivered to cell phones.

The financial deals of the partnership between the two companies were not disclosed. Red Hat will provide Nokia with onsite consulting, support, certification, and training services, and will tightly integrate its own development and support organization with the telecommunications solutions development operation at Nokia.

In a separate announcement, Red Hat said that it would be moving its stock off the Nasdaq market, where it went public in August 1999, and onto the New York Stock Exchange, which is also called the Big Board in Wall Street parlance. Red Hat said that it is making the move to increase the visibility of the company and reduce the volatility in trading of the company's stock. When enough high tech companies take a haircut on the Nasdaq, all tech companies tend to get a haircut--justified or not. Red Hat jumps to the Big Board on December 12, and will trade under the symbol RHT.