The company has appointed Alex Pinchev to the role. He is the former president, chairman, CEO and founder of asset management software vendor MainControl Inc, which was acquired by MRO Software Inc in May 2002, and will be responsible for the sales and service delivery of Red Hat’s products outside North America.

According to the company, extending its global reach is one of its main aims. International expansion is a key corporate objective, said Red Hat CEO, Matthew Szulik. Alex brings a great deal of international experience leading and building global organizations.

While Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat is probably the most well known Linux distributor worldwide, the majority of its revenue still comes from its native North American market, while it faces still competition in Europe, Asia/Pac and Latin America.

According to the company’s annual report, North America was responsible for 70.4% of revenue during its fiscal year 2002 ended February 28, compared with 14.7% from Europe, and 14.9% from Asia Pacific and Japan. This was at least an improvement on the previous year when the figures were 75.5%, 13.1% and 11.4% respectively. Figures for fiscal year 2003 are not yet available.

In expanding beyond its North American base Red Hat will face a challenge from more established local vendors with international pretensions. SuSE Linux AG is the largest Linux distributor in Europe and is particularly strong in its native Germany, the most advanced country worldwide in terms of Linux usage.

Although probably more popular as a consumer Linux distributor, MandrakeSoft SA has also built up a large and loyal user base in Europe based on its commitment to ease of use, especially in its native France. Meanwhile, Turbolinux Inc dominates the market in Japan and has made a large impact in Australia, while Conectiva SA dominates the Latin American market.

Additionally, SuSE, Turbolinux and Conectiva, along with SCO Group Inc, have improved their international credentials through the UnitedLinux partnership, which has created a single code base for their Linux distributions as well as global sales, marketing and customer support agreements.

Source: Computerwire