Red Hat opens support and R&D center in Serbia

Red Hat, in collaboration with IBM, opened a support and research facility in Vrsac, Serbia, to serve customers in South Eastern Europe.

The center will be managed by VDEL, an IT services distribution company, and will provide support, development and educational services to Red Hat customers, partners and developers in the region.

IBM will offer the center access to its technologies and knowledge base so that in the future the center can also support IBM’s open source products.

The companies will use the center to promote their security offerings since they have both earned security certificates for Common Criteria 4+, an international set of guidelines that companies can use to evaluate IT security.

Red Hat and IBM also expect that the center will help stimulate the development and implementation of open source software in Serbia, boost educational programs in the sciences through IT innovations and help bridge the digital gap by developing programs supporting digital literacy in schools and lower income communities.

The center is the result of an initiative launched in 2005 by the University of Belgrade to create an incubator for new technologies. That resulted in IBM, Red Hat and VDEL opening a Linux innovation and education center at the university which offered education, training and certification on Red Hat and IBM technologies. The center trained potential workers for the new support center launched on Monday.

The city of Vrsac provided infrastructure and facilities for the center. Red Hat chose Vrsac for its infrastructure, location, and multiethnic and multicultural environment. The growth potential of the Serbian market and nearby regions was also an attraction, it said.