The Irish cloud-based enterprise mobile application platform FeedHenry is to be acquired by Red Hat, subject to customary closing conditions, according to an announcement on the FeedHenry web site.
The deal is worth €63.5 million in cash, subject to certain adjustments at closing, according to the Red Hat announcement.
According to its own company description, FeedHenry provides a cloud-based enterprise mobile application platform that enables users to design, develop, deploy and manage applications for mobile devices. The company specialises in extending enterprise systems to mobile devices, incorporating the unique capabilities of mobile devices, the flexibility and scalability of cloud technology, and the security of integrating apps with multiple backend systems.
The FeedHenry platform provides mobile-specific services for security, notification and data synchronisation. And it enables the mobile developer to build access to corporate data and applications into their mobile applications and to build backend logic that supports their mobile applications – all in a secure, scalable manner, the company assures.
In a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) format, FeedHenry said that Red Hat is interested in offering a mobile platform because “mobile computing is changing the way enterprises conduct business and engage with their employees, partners, and customers. It is a rapidly growing segment of the information technology market and enterprises are looking for solutions that enable them to extend existing applications to mobile devices and to build new applications that embrace mobile users from the beginning.”
“FeedHenry is a natural fit with Red Hat’s strengths in enterprise middleware and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), allowing our customers to meet their growing mobile requirements.”
According to the FAQ, FeedHenry says that Red Hat’s plan of action for the company’s existing platform is to expand and complement Red Hat’s own broad portfolio of application development and integration products and will enable enterprises to build, integrate and manage rich, scalable mobile applications.
“FeedHenry is an important addition to Red Hat’s JBoss xPaaS strategy for OpenShift, providing a cloud-based platform that supports flexible mobile application development and backend integration to enterprise systems. FeedHenry complements Red Hat’s vision for the future of application development by attracting mobile application development to its OpenStack and OpenShift cloud offerings,” says the FAQ.
FeedHenry currently employs around 65 employees worldwide, with primary sites in Waterford and Dublin, Staines in England and Burlington, Massachusetts.
“Red Hat plans to continue to sell and support FeedHenry’s products. FeedHenry has an engaged and growing customer base, and Red Hat is committed to expanding and innovating to provide customers with high-value solutions.”
“Since our inception, FeedHenry has embraced open technologies and the cloud for mobile development and management,” said Cathal McGloin, chief executive officer, FeedHenry. “We are excited to become part of Red Hat, the leader in open source enterprise solutions, and see this as confirmation of the combined power of mobile and cloud, the mass-market adoption of mobile application and MBaaS platforms, and the growing popularity of Node.js. By joining Red Hat, we now have an opportunity to bring our leading mobile application platform to a wider audience of global customers and partners, to help them optimize for the mobile-first world.”
“The mobile application platform is one of the fastest growing segments of the enterprise software market,” said Craig Muzilla, senior vice president, Application Platform Business, Red Hat. “As mobile devices have penetrated into every aspect of enterprise computing, enterprise software customers are looking for easier and more efficient ways for their developers to build mobile applications that extend and enhance traditional enterprise applications. FeedHenry will help us enable customers to take advantage of the capabilities of mobile with the security, scalability, and reliability of Red Hat enterprise software.”
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