The investment firm that manages the private fortune of Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell invested $99.5 million in Red Hat Inc., the world"s largest distributor of the Linux computer operating system, according to regulatory filings. The investment by MSD Capital was the largest by any single company from a $600 million bond issue in January 2004. Raleigh-based Red Hat disclosed Dell"s investment in an April 27 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day and MSD spokesman Todd Fogarty declined to comment Tuesday on Dell"s investment.
Earlier this week , markjensen linked to an article about Microsoft"s Steve Ballmer and Red Hat"s Matthew Szulik meeting back in late March. Does this latest news further anyone else"s suspicions that Microsoft is shopping for a top name corporate driven linux distro to buy in order to compete with Novell"s purchase of Suse? Consider that shares of Red Hat are almost down to their 52 week low, and it makes me think that we"ll soon be seeing Microsoft Linux on the retail shelves.
Neowin member shanepitman contributed to this article