Javed Tapia, the face of Linux in India, who stepped down as the president of Red Hat India last week, will continue to be one of the directors of the company.
Giving his first official interview after his resignation, Tapia told ChannelTimes that he will still be involved with the company albeit in a limited role. “Though I will not be handling the day-to-day affairs of the company now, I will continue to be a part of the strategic decision-making committee.”
According to Red Hat, Tapia will continue his involvement in guiding the company’s vision in India.
Explaining his departure from a company founded by him, Tapia said that the decision has got more to do with his entrepreneurial nature. “As an entrepreneur, I always wanted to set up a firm on my own, manage it, handle it and support it. Being unconventional was not possible in a corporate atmosphere of a huge and expanding company like Red Hat.”
Tapia took charge as the president of Red Hat India after his pivotal contribution of getting open source technology to India. While it is still tentative as to who will take over as the new president, Tapia will be a part of the team examining the potential candidates, and the new head will take over by next week, he added. On his own future plans, Tapia said that he was thinking about starting a new venture, but refrained from elaborating if it would be in the Linux space.
As one of the first catalysts of the open source movement in India, Tapia’s involvement with Red Hat India will continue. This move is part of a planned agreement with Red Hat Inc.
With over 15 years’ experience, Tapia is the founder of Clover Technologies, an end-to-end IT solutions company that provides enterprise level Unix and Oracle solutions and support to corporates.
Red Hat India started off as a joint venture between Tapia, who held 40 percent of the share, and Red Hat Inc, USA, which held rest of the shares. In December 2005, Red Hat Inc decided to convert the India entity into a 100 percent subsidiary and bought over the 40 percent share from Tapia. Tapia has been leading Red Hat’s Indian operations since its inception in December 2000.