Red Hat, Malaysia “unveiled” their new Malaysia and Brunei country manager at a Chinese New Year Press Lunch hosted by the man himself Chew Kai Peng and his boss Damien Wong the Regional Vice President and GM for Red Hat ASEAN.
 
The setting was at the Chyyna restaurant in the KL Hilton and DSA along with several other members of mainstream and IT press were treated to Red Hat hospitality as we enjoyed a CNY lunch and at the same time got the chance to discuss the future with these two Red Hat regional leaders.
 
On Chew’s appointment Wong explained “Red Hat recognizes the potential of the Asia Pacific region and Malaysia. With Chew’s strong expertise within the ICT industry, he will lead the local team and work alongside our customers and partners. In this role, he will focus on the adoption of improved and advanced technologies whilst helping to unlock and accelerate innovation possibilities in Malaysia.”
 
We note that Chew has moved from a service focused ASEAN role within Red Hat to this new position. More interesting is prior to arriving at Red Hat in May last year, Chew was a 13-year veteran of HP where his most recent role had been country GM of the HP software business. Taking this vast experience and moving it to the open source world seems to have been a smart move for Chew and for Red Hat.
 
Wong explained further that as country manager, Chew will lead the direction of the team in Malaysia, helping to establish strong ties with enterprise customers and partners in Malaysia, and expand awareness of open source solutions in the country as organizations embrace modern technologies to meet the expectations of an increasingly digital society.
 
When questioned about Red Hat’s growth prospects in the region Damien was cagey, he remains optimistic but that optimism is tempered by global uncertainties and the effect they may have over here.
 
Since beginning operations in Malaysia in 2006, Red Hat has seen a positive shift in the adoption of open source. Many organizations are undergoing IT and business transformations to better compete in today’s digital economy. Open source, which is fundamentally about being part of an ecosystem of IT leaders, advocates, developers, and partners who work together to build the future of IT, open source solutions offer many benefits for modern, digital solutions in terms of flexibility, faster innovation through ecosystem collaboration, and scalability.

Chew himself told us “I appreciate Red Hat’s determination to provide the best products and solutions to our customers in the industry. I am excited to work alongside the Malaysian Red Hat team and our local partners to help customers modernize their IT infrastructures whilst enabling an innovative approach which can enable to business success.” Whilst his words might be well crafted no doubt Chew has a big challenge ahead. Malaysia has never willingly embraced open source as has been the case in countries like China, so he will need to use all his experience to effect major mindshare change.

However, as Damien Wong points out, the world is changing and platforms like OpenStack are being adopted as flexibility and rapid development become more important than the comfort of legacy. Damien believes strongly the changes that are occurring today are shaping a very different digital world than we have seen before.  “Even banking apps are defining how we decide which banks we want to use. It’s no longer the trust of the employees in the bank. So, if a bank isn’t changing its brick and mortar philosophy to one that incorporates the digital age, they are going to lose out on a very big market trend and the banks that do, will be the ones to succeed”.
 
We can’t argue with that, and we wish Chew and the Malaysia Red Hat Team Gong Xi Fa Cai and a prosperous year ahead!