Today TBJ is saying that IBM is buying out RedHat for 34 billion & that the HQC will remain in Raleigh !
Yah but will their HQ remain in DT
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Wow didn’t see that coming. What could that mean for downtown?
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A huge loss! And one that keeps Raleigh as a second or third tier city without a company HQs.
Does anyone here see Duke as a real win for DTR? Now we have two if you do…
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One thing I saw was IBM might move its HQ to Raleigh, but that could be to RTP.
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I honestly don’t see why this is such a negative. Raleigh’s a small city now and will still be a small city after the acquisition. It has a good economy now with an educated workforce and that’ll still be true as well. There are lots of good reasons to compare Raleigh to other cities, namely to see what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong, but breaking them into “tiers” seems pretty arbitrary and doesn’t say anything about the quality of life in those places. I’d much rather focus on having a strong economy, high quality of life and happy, prosperous citizens than get caught up worry about where we “stack up” against other places.
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@Steve
Unfortunately I don’t have the time to give a rundown of why loosing Red Hat is so important. Let me start with a question. Why do YOU think having a tech company and having its Headquarters/support staff/ceo/chairman/board of directors/etc located in DTR is good for Raleigh?
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I understand why having a concentration of good jobs is beneficial for the city, but as long as Raleigh has a strong workforce, companies will have offices here. I’m sure having HQ’s is good for DT, but, I guess I think hitting the panic button is an overreaction.
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Companies do generally provide more financial support for a city’s non-profits such as art museums, ballets, performance spaces, etc in the city where they are headquartered. If there are no headquarters in a city it is definitely a loss relative to other cities that do have headquarters.
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Dang, what a bummer!
I recall hearing that Red Hat at some point was interested in a new place due to their growth. Hopefully the IBM takeover won’t stall the possibility of Red Hat driving the construction of a new tower.
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This acquisition is bad news for DTR and RedHat rank and file in my view. IBM has plenty of excess office capacity in RTP. I don’t think they will be very motivated to fund construction projects downtown.
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Sadly agreed. 
If anything, you’ll probably see people moved to RTP from DTR
My admittedly uninformed impression of IBM management is that they are tone deaf enough to move Red Hat wholesale into their windowless soulless warehouses up in RTP.
Link to E-mail sent to Red Hat employees from CEO and Presidents, Jim Whitehurst:
Red Hat + IBM: Creating the leading hybrid cloud provider
Red Hat will remain an independent unit within IBM. This could mean further expansion as there will be new opportunities. IBM does not have a lot to gain by moving Red Hat from Raleigh.
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Not to be too pessimistic, however “Duke” said the same thing when the bought CP&L.
And I just don’t see too much in the good column for DTR after this merger. Red Hat is or is becoming a realy big cloud company and as such, all of the back room/door roles will be the cost savings for Big Blue and good for NY…
Hopefully Red Hat remains “independent” and can sustain and even grow their downtown Raleigh presence and continue their philanthropic efforts in the city in light of the acquisition. However, with the buyout the potential real “win” is the new liquidity generated for some of the top management who can invest in funding new technology start-ups in the city and existing Red Hat employees who see this opportunity to go out and start something new. As much as the big HQ companies help a city, the new home grown ventures can be the biggest shot in the arm for an area. See Pendo and others that have started here and grown and continue to grow.
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It was reported that IBM’s plans are to allow Red Hat to remain as an independent business unit so right now, that seems like the best situation for them.
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Here is a good article. “I do see Whitehurst as CEO of IBM in six months or less”
https://www.cringely.com/2018/10/29/red-hat-takes-over-ibm/
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Whitehurst being CEO will be the only way Red Hat or the remaining stripped down version of Red Hat will have a presence in Raleigh 5 years from now.
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