Last year we set out to start the Application Platform Partner Initiative with the objective to enable deeper collaboration with partners focused on application platform and emerging technologies. We planned to create a collaborative go-to-market strategy between Red Hat and participating partner organizations focused on optimizing the value chain for application development and integration projects.

The Application Platform Partner Initiative focuses on Application Development-related and other emerging technology offerings, which revenue increased 42% in our last fiscal year up to $624 million. Partners like the APPs are contributing to this growth and we are happy to see the momentum continuing, and their trust on Red Hat as a strategic partner. What started out as a pilot has developed into a fully fledged initiative with 28 partners across North America, who are as committed as we are to the role opens source plays at the core of digital transformation.

As part of the success of this initiative, for the first time this year, we have created the Application Platform Partner Pavilion in Red Hat Summit.  Arctiq, Crossvale, Kovarus, Levvel, Li9, Lighthouse, OSI, Shadow-Soft, VeriStor and Vizuri will join us this year in the pavilion. Don’t miss a chance to get to know the advanced solutions they have created on top of Openshift and Red Hat Middleware products, which they will be showcasing at Red Hat Summit. Check out, for example, Arctiq Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Crossvale CloudBalancer for Red Hat® OpenShift or Vizuri log aggregation solutions.

These partners are delivering a strong investment in enablement, and commitment in their go-to-market alliance with Red Hat, including co-marketing and sales collaboration. As some examples of planned activities, Arctiq is running a Modern Mobile App Development event and Crossvale an OpenShift roadshow).

Levvel has been an active participant in the APP program, doing joint webinars, customer workshops and panel discussions to promote Red Hat emerging technologies. As a result, they have influenced and closed quite a few customers and have a long list of potential opportunities. Don’t forget to attend their coming up event “App Transformation Workshop: Monoliths to Microservices”!

Shadow-Soft has been particularly focused on growing the customer base with our OpenShift and JBoss product family with innovative sales and marketing strategies that are turning into a growing pipeline of opportunities, and running events around digital transformation.

Veristor joined recently the APP program and is growing rapidly their different practices around OpenShift and Red Hat Middleware, like DevOps and Agile Consulting, Services and Software Development practice.

OSI, an international company with a long experience with JBoss, is also growing in the US and have worked on an Agile Integration demo environment focusing on JBoss Fuse Integration platform to support their customer engagements, including integration with cloud and on-premise systems. Try to attend their “Monoliths to Microservices: App Transformation Workshop” right after Summit.

Vizuri has been a Red Hat partner for over 10 years. Having delivered more than 120 JBoss-related engagements, their JBoss experience and expertise helps customers reduce risk and improve time-to-value, while avoiding project delays and unplanned downtime. You can’t miss their take on How To Manage Business Rules In A Microservices Architecture using OpenShift and JBoss BRMS.

Having recently joined the APP program, Astellent has heavily invested in enablement and marketing, while achieving exciting customer success. Read their views on the newly launched Red Hat Decision Manager 7.

Lighthouse has been helping businesses with the right mix of Red Hat's public, on-premises, and hybrid cloud technologies, customizing them to fit their unique business needs. They have also been active with unique marketing events like the one with the Red Sox coming in May.

As you can see, APP partners are working closely with Red Hat to establish a sales, marketing, and delivery practice around Red Hat technologies, including Red Hat JBoss Middleware, Red Hat OpenShift, and Red Hat Mobile Application Platform.

In the words of John Bleuer, VP, Strategic Partners, North America, "I am thrilled that as year one of the program ends, the sophistication of our partner solutioning and delivery abilities has increased dramatically; many partners are working with us in industry and line of business (including healthcare, payments, and e-commerce); other partners are adding sophistication into the DevOps / automation practices with Openshift, Jenkins, and Ansible, while others are honing their skills delivering app modernization and integration & BPM solutions in a cloud native environment, containerized in OpenShift.  It's an exciting time at Red Hat".

The market is looking to digital transformation initiatives to grow and maintain competitive advantage. Challenges range from confined platforms to complex architectures, from rigid processes to lack of agility. Together with our partners, we can play a critical role to help our customers overcome those to become growing, competitive organizations.

We hope to see you at Red Hat Summit checking them out, as well as at the Red Hat Summit Ecosystem Expo!