So how does Red Hat hope to grow its “cloud computing” efforts? By hiring a research analyst and critic who has talked with companies about challenges and problems they face in the cloud, including OpenStack on which Red Hat is banking heavily.

In fact, the analyst wrote a blog headlined: “Why vendors can’t sell OpenStack to enterprises.”

“They don’t know how to sell it,” he said after an OpenStack summit in Hong Kong.

Now, Alessandro Perilli, formerly of research firm Gartner, has joined Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) as general manager of a new Open Hybrid Cloud Program Office. He’s charged with helping Hatters how to sell and close OpenStack deals.

Since Red Hat is all about Linux and Linux is open source, it has moved aggressively to embrace OpenStack. It’s Perilli’s new job to help Red Hat, which reports its latest earnings on Thursday, develop solutions that meet customer needs in the exploding cloud computing business.

The move also is the second major executive change made by Red Hat since January. Former Black Duck Software CEO Tim Yeaton returned to Red Hat to head up infrastructure efforts.

Just a year ago, Gartner forecast companies would spend $677 billion on cloud related services between 2013-2016. And Red Hat’s bet is on OpenStack vs. “closed” proprietary solutions.

A Customer Perspective

But in a blog post at Red Hat posted after he was named to the job on Tuesday, Perilli says customers have questions and problems. 

“One of the things I learned is that the current market offering in terms of cloud management platforms is not satisfying for most of the large enterprises. I learned that OpenStack has a number of issues that must be solved to succeed, as I infamously pointed out in my last blog post at Gartner,” he wrote.

“I learned that customer demand is evolving rapidly and the most successful vendors are the ones that listen and adapt, not the ones that are stuck in the past or follow ideals at all costs.

“Enterprises have real world problems to solve, and need pragmatic and credible business partners.”

Perilli was research director at Gartner and led the private cloud research program in that company’s Technical Professionals Division.

“Alessandro is a well-respected, highly sought-after expert in cloud, cloud management and virtualization,” Red Hat said in its announcement. “Over the course of his career, he has consulted with countless large end-user organizations and cloud technology providers about their cloud implementation and cloud product strategies, respectively. He is a frequent speaker at major industry events, and is both deeply technical and compellingly articulate in individual customer and large conference settings.”

Red Hat says the Open Hybrid Cloud Program Office is responsible for “driving Red Hat’s cross-company vision; product integration and strategy; cloud ecosystem strategy and engagement; and global awareness of Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud vision.”

Perilli noted in his blog that he has worked in cloud research “for the last three years.”

“Overall, I spent more than a decade analysing disruptive markets: virtualization first and cloud then,” he wrote. “I reviewed hundreds of go to market strategies and products from countless vendors. I advised large enterprise organizations worldwide on how to develop an adoption strategy, how to identify the best products for their needs, how to transform their operational frameworks to return on their investment, how to make sense of these highly competitive and often confusing markets, and ultimately succeed.”

Why Join Red Hat?

Perrilli cited several reasons for joining Red Hat, from technical and tools to developers.

He also cited “intangible qualities:”

 

• “The credibility to bring open source to the enterprises
• “The genuine desire to invest in new technologies and business models to innovate
• “No vested interests in selling hardware or services”

But Perrilli knows competition will be fierce.

IBM and Cisco both recently have launched $1 billion could efforts, for example.

“Becoming a leading cloud management platform player is the goal,” he declared.

“Will it be easy? Nope, but Red Hat and I have always been up for big challenges.”

[RED HAT ARCHIVE: Check out more than a decade of Red Hat stories as reported in WRALTechWire.]