Raleigh-based Red Hat is expanding its geographic footprint in a significant way – but not in its hometown. Rather’ it’s in Boston with a salute, perhaps unintended, to that hit TV shows of eyars gone by “Cheers.”

The Hatters on Wednesday opened a Global Executive Briefing Center as well as its first East Coast-based Open Innovation Labs facility in Boston. The other lads are located in Mountain View, Cali, and a recently opened facility in London.

Interestingly, the new Boston space also includes a bar.

Reports The Boston Globe:

“The North Carolina-based software firm this week opened a new global executive briefing center on A Street in the Fort Point section of South Boston. There, clients can touch wall-sized video screens to learn more about their Red Hat projects or the software development work the company has done for others. After a day of brainstorming or deal-making, they can relax in a ‘speakeasy’ — a hidden room with a bar that will be managed by the operators of Drink, the Congress Street nightclub.”

“It’s really a window into the entire company from a worldwide perspective,” Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s president of products and technologies, told the Globe.

As for why expanding in Boston …

“The decision to expand into the city of Boston was driven by the city’s reputation as a premier technology hub, its history of computer science technology development, and the area’s many world-class universities, which produce some of the nation’s top technology talent,” Red Hat declared in a statement.

The new center covers 40,000 square feet.

Cormier pointed out: “The future of innovation is open and the organizations that will be best positioned for the future are those that are using technology to differentiate, introduce new services, and disrupt markets.

“Our new facility in Boston brings open innovation to life in new ways, not only enabling us to develop and showcase the latest open source advancements, but also offering a world-class platform for us to collaborate with customers on their next breakthroughs through Red Hat Open Innovation Labs and Boston’s vibrant tech community.”

Red Hat, which is the world leader in Open Source Linux development and services as well as a growing player in cloud computing, said the center is designed “to help companies speed technology innovation in immersive Labs environment and showcase the possibilities of open source software in state-of-the-art Executive Briefing Center and Engineering Lab.”

The complex is located in Boston’s Seaport District.

Red Hat also has a second operation near Boston. Its worldwide engineering and product headquarters are located in Westford, Mass.

Inside Red Hat’s new center

  • Global Executive Briefing Center

Red Hat’s new state-of-the-art Global Executive Briefing Center offers an innovative, interactive and immersive experience that brings open source innovation to life by showcasing Red Hat’s full portfolio of enterprise-class open source software and creates collaborative experiences that embody the open source approach. Visitors – who are expected to include senior executives from many of the world’s largest and most innovative organizations – can learn firsthand from Red Hat’s executives, product leaders and engineers how open source can drive innovations across industries and understand Red Hat’s initiatives to advance the technology industry with its open source leadership to address customers’ business challenges.

  • Red Hat Engineering Lab

The new facility also serves as home base for the company’s Boston-based Engineering Lab. The new Engineering Lab continues Red Hat’s legacy of innovation by focusing on research and development around emerging open source technologies, and will facilitate Red Hat’s research and development initiatives with both upstream open source communities and Boston’s renowned universities, including Boston University. Co-locating the Engineering Lab with Red Hat Open Innovation Labs also offers a unique opportunity for collaboration and joint development between Red Hat engineers, customers, and partners.

  • Red Hat Open Innovation Labs

Through Red Hat Open Innovation Labs, a residency-based initiative, IT teams work closely with Red Hat consultants, engineers and subject matter experts to modernize existing applications or create new ones with open source and DevOps. The typical Red Hat Open Innovation Labs residency lasts anywhere from one to three months and provides IT professionals with the technologies, methods, and skills to accelerate business initiatives. Through hands-on instruction, teams can also learn how to adopt agile development methodologies, DevOps practices, and get immediate and direct experience with open principles and open culture that underlie many open source communities.

Source: Red Hat

VIDEO: Watch a video overview about Red Hat Innovation Labs at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxOKoqpDuIA