OLinux: Introduce yourself. What are your responsibilities at Red Hat?

Erik Troan: VP Product Engineering.

OLinux: How was Red Hat created? Who was the group and what were the ideas that guided Red Hat start? How do you explain the fast growth of Red Hat? Show us some brief facts/work/people that contributed to this extreme progress?

Erik Troan: Red Hat was incorporated in 1994 and was the brainchild of engineer Marc Ewing and self-proclaimed marketer Bob Young. While Bob remained in Connecticut, Marc recruited myself and Donnie Barnes here in NC to engineer the first releases of Red Hat Linux.

OLinux: How is Red Hat organized? Try to give us an idea of how Red Hat works?

Erik Troan: Red Hat is a pretty flat organization, meaning there aren't too many degrees of separation between anyone and the executive team. Generally, the company is divided into segments by function (marketing, engineering, sales, etc.), with segment leaders acting as the VP of the group.

OLinux: How is the coordinated and managed (servers, directories, contribution, staff payment)? How many people are involved? What are the main problems? Does Red Hat has a central office somewhere or a HQ?

Erik Troan: Red Hat is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC., and we have offices worldwide. We coordinate activities such as salaries, expense reports and internal communication through headquarters. Other activities such as recruiting and hiring are coordinated at individual locations in conjunction with headquarters.

OLinux: Could you explain Red Hat strategy towards building alliances with companies Like IBM and Samsung?

Erik Troan: Alliances have always been a key part of Red Hat's strategy. We believe in building relationships around open source and our services, and we have partnered with some of the biggest names in the industry in order to bring their resources and credibility to open source.

OLinux: Can you disclose any results about new clients or companies willing to buy Red Hat's new services or Red Hat Linux 7.0?

Erik Troan: We have a pretty extensive success story list, which can be viewed here .

As for new clients, I'll let the PR folks announce those.

OLinux: What kind of customers use Red Hat's services and Red Hat Linux?

Erik Troan: Our capabilities run the entire computing spectrum from servers and high availability clustering to embedded devices and handhelds. We have server enterprise customers such as Home Depot and Toyota as well embedded customers such as Sony, Ericcson and Samsung.

OLinux: Tell us about the new Red Hat's support services? Will services become the main revenue stream in Red hat balance sheet? What is the current service/total revenues?

Erik Troan: Service and subscription to our services are a key part of our revenue stream, which we've already communicated to the Street. We have also just announced the Red Hat Network, which is a s a secure Internet service for the deployment and management of networks of Red Hat Linux systems. Every Red Hat Linux system, from the set-top box to the developer workstation to the Internet server, becomes more reliable, useful, and secure when it is connected to Red Hat Network.

OLinux: What are the main projects under way? are there any commercial projects paid by companies? What role does Red Hat play in the Open Source world these days?

Erik Troan: In the open source world, Red Hat will continue to release and develop its technology under open source licenses. This is why the services we provide, including the Network, are such a key part of our strategy and the technology landscape that open source is now changing.

OLinux: What is the percentage of gross income spent in research and development? How important foreign sales have become in overall revenue input? Does Red Hat consider establishing in continents as Latin America or Asia? Let's talk about revenues, how much the company expect to make this year? What are the plans for next year? How much the company is planning to invest?

Erik Troan: All of the above has been communicated publicly, and I would not feel comfortable discussing further.