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Red Hat names telecoms VP in EMEA

Regina Pazvakavambwa
By Regina Pazvakavambwa, ITWeb portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 25 Apr 2016
While Red Hat made its name with Linux for the enterprise, it's now heavily involved with opening up the telecoms industry, says Red Hat's Massimo Fatato.
While Red Hat made its name with Linux for the enterprise, it's now heavily involved with opening up the telecoms industry, says Red Hat's Massimo Fatato.

Red Hat has appointed Massimo Fatato vice president of its telecommunications business in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

According to the company, Fatato will lead strategic development and programme execution to support Red Hat's expansion in the telecommunications market in EMEA.

He will be responsible for setting out Red Hat's vision for the EMEA telecommunications market and overseeing the execution of this strategy across sales and marketing.

This is a brand new role at Red Hat, demonstrating its commitment to this sector going forward -helping it to focus on driving momentum across the telecoms space as a strategic priority, says Fatato.

"I am three months into the role and my team is currently focused on identifying the opportunities across EMEA for us to build our telecoms offering and drive momentum across the sector."

While Red Hat made its name with Linux for the enterprise, it's now heavily involved with opening up the telecoms industry, which is arguably the last closed landscape in IT, notes Fatato.

"As the community migrates to open networks, my job will be to drive awareness with large and small telecoms around the benefits of OpenStack.

"Today, OpenStack is powering Internet of things, 5G and network function virtualisation, as well as enabling telecoms to run their business better and take cloud services to enterprise customers. It's an exciting time for the industry."

According to Fatato, as the telecoms industry undergoes fundamental technological transformation, there is a huge potential for companies like Red Hat to step in and support network equipment providers and communications service providers through this evolution.

Africa is a unique and exciting market, he notes. The improved economic conditions have seen the continent experience the fastest telecoms growth worldwide, transforming social and business life, he adds.

"So there are obviously a wealth of opportunities here and we'll be looking closely at the market to see where it makes sense for us to invest and develop the business."

Mobile device use is rocketing as mobile becomes increasingly central to our working and personal lives, says Fatato. Also, businesses are ramping up Internet of things' initiatives, he notes.

This increases the pressure on CSPs to ensure quality of experience to meet heightening customer demands, continues Fatato. At the same time, CSPs face falling average revenue per user and competition from over-the-top services, he elaborates.

All the while they're wrestling with complex infrastructure that needs simplifying, automation and updating without disrupting the always-on, quality of experience-driven business, says Fatato.

This is a challenge that many CSPs are looking to combat by introducing network functions virtualisation, which promises leaps ahead for operators in agility as well as long-term cost savings, he explains.

"The telecommunications landscape is changing at an unparalleled pace. Massimo knows the industry inside-out, and we are delighted to have him on board to head up our telecommunications operations throughout EMEA, says Werner Knoblich, senior vice president and general manager, EMEA, Red Hat.

"With his extensive industry background, Massimo brings the experience needed to broaden and deepen our business across the industry, delivering to our EMEA customers the operational, economic, and innovation benefits offered by Red Hat technologies," he adds.

Fatato joins Red Hat from HP, where he served as general manager for its operations support system portfolio worldwide, and previously worked at Cisco and Accenture as sales director.

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