DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – 6th April, 2014 - Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has won the prestigious Channel Middle East award for ‘Software Vendor of the Year’ 2014. The award recognizes Red Hat’s effective channel strategy and focus to empower its partners and introduce effective programs to drive growth within the channel. The Channel Middle East Awards serve as a platform for honouring companies that are top of their class when it comes to channel development and market expansion in the region.

During the past year, Red Hat focused its efforts on driving partner excellence throughout the Middle East. It is currently in the process of revamping its partner program by making it more solution-oriented around three key pillars: datacenter infrastructure, enterprise middleware solutions and cloud infrastructure.

Red Hat has restructured and expanded its partner enablement tools with the launch of its Online Partner Enablement Network (OPEN), which consists of the Tech Library, and free of charge online training and eLabs. Further to that, it also introduced the Red Hat Partner Demo System where partners can both observe and sample online product demonstrations.

Another major initiative in the Middle East was the introduction of the Red Hat Certified Cloud Provider program and on-boarding the first Certified Cloud Provider partners. While regional enterprises are beginning to understand the relevance and benefits of a hybrid cloud model, Red Hat was the first vendor in the region to make available a true open hybrid cloud product portfolio to the channel.

Other channel initiatives include an update of the Red Hat Channel Marketing Center, including the creation of a content syndication and marketing automation tool to assist partners in generating leads and develop pipelines for joint opportunities. To support partner growth, Red Hat has also added channel solution architects and partner sales representatives. These trained technical resources are available to help Red Hat partners architect and configure Red Hat solutions for customers and work exclusively on joint selling opportunities. Additional investments have been made in Red Hat’s Partner Help Desk, making it easier for partners to get quick answers to questions regarding the Red Hat partner program, Red Hat Partner Center and other system infrastructure tools.

Red Hat has an official training and certification curriculum that is available to partners and customers in the Middle East, Africa & Turkey, through eight certified training partners. The training offers pre-sales engagements, workshops, product demos, webinars and knowledge transfer through joint professional services activities.