The VAR Guy

Amid its march toward $1 billion in annual revenues, Red Hat continues to invest more money in Jaspersoft — an open source business intelligence company. The VAR Guy has openly wondered — multiple times — if Red Hat will ever fully acquire Jaspersoft. Hmmm…

No doubt, Jaspersoft is an attractive company. More than 14,000 commercial customers use Jaspersoft’s business intelligence software, which is available on premise and in the cloud. Backed by $11 million in new funding, Jaspersoft is considering “potential strategic acquisitions,” according to a prepared statement.

Multiple investors are dancing with Jaspersoft — including SAP Ventures, Quest Software, Doll Capital Management, Morgenthaler Ventures, Partech International, Scale Venture Partners, Adams Street Partners, and of course Red Hat.

Why is Red Hat hot for Jaspersoft? The business intelligence market certainly is attractive. In the SaaS market alone, SMBs will increase BI spending by 25 percent per year through 2015, AMI Partners predicts.

Still, The VAR Guy suspects Red Hat has its hands full with existing business priorities — pushing beyond Linux and JBoss to promote Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) and a range of cloud initiatives. Plus, Red Hat maintains a separate BI partnership with Pentaho — one of Jaspersoft’s key rivals.

For now, Red Hat — much like SAP and Quest — seems content to dance with Jaspersoft without asking for Jaspersoft’s hand in marriage.

Read More About This Topic

• Pentaho: Open Source BI Accelerates Partner Momentum
• Open Source Earns New Opportunity With Channel Partners
• Six Channel Partner Blogs The VAR Guy Didn’t Write: Aug. 27
• Synnex, Red Hat and Partners Launch Open Source Channel Alliance
• Red Hat Invests In Open Source Business Intelligence Company