IBM said Tuesday morning it has closed its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, which was announced last October.

The pricey deal, which paid Red Hat owners a hefty premium of more than 60%, marks IBM CEO Ginni Rometty’s biggest bet yet in transforming her 108-year-old technology company.

In an interview Tuesday morning, she said some tech analysts have assumed the move to the cloud would lead to a “winner take all” scenario, where one giant platform—Amazon Web Services?—ends up with all the business.

But she believes the IBM-Red Hat combination will be better able to serve big companies that have legacy systems and will inevitably end up using multiple cloud systems, combined with on-premise systems.

“You need a hybrid cloud. You can’t rebuild everything,” she said. Big companies are increasingly coming to the recognition that “hybrid cloud is not a temporary destination, it is the destination.”

For Red Hat, the tie-up with IBM allows it to reach more companies, and to move deeper into those firms.

“If you look at our revenue growth, it has accelerated since the acquisition was announced,” said Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst. "We are already seeing confidence from our customers in the power of this in the future.”

Rometty believes the combined power of IBM and Red Hat will empower what she calls “the incumbent disrupter”—big companies that can drive change in their industries, rather than be disrupted by tech challengers.

Whitehurst will become part of the IBM management team. Rometty has committed to allowing Red Hat to run independently.

IBM在周二早上宣布，已经完成去年10月宣布的340亿美元收购Red Hat公司的交易。

在这笔昂贵的交易中，IBM向Red Hat的股东支付了超过60%的高额溢价，这是IBM首席执行官罗睿兰为改造这家拥有108年历史的科技公司而押下的最大赌注。

罗睿兰在周二早上接受采访时表示，有些科技分析师认为，向云服务转变的趋势将会带来“赢家通吃”的局面，也就是所有业务最终都会被一个巨大的平台所包揽，比如说亚马逊AWS。

但她认为，IBM与Red Hat的组合将能更好地为拥有遗留系统的大公司服务，这些公司必然会使用多个云系统，并与本地部署系统相结合。

“混合云将成为必然的选择，不是所有东西都能重建。”她说道，大公司越来越认识到“混合云不是什么临时的目标，而是最终目标。”

对Red Hat来说，与IBM合并能够令其接触到更多公司，并加深与这些公司的合作。

“自这项并购交易宣布以来，我们的营收增长速度加快了。”Red Hat的首席执行官吉姆·怀特赫斯特说道，“客户对我们未来在这个领域中的实力抱有信心。”

罗睿兰相信，IBM和Red Hat的联合力量将成为她口中的“当权颠覆者”，能够推动行业变革，而不是被科技挑战者所颠覆。

怀特赫斯特将加入IBM管理团队。罗睿兰已经承诺允许Red Hat独立运营。（财富中文网）

译者：艾伦

审校：夏林