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Big blue is donning red headgear. Even a few months ago the idea that IBM, a venerable corporate IT firm,
藍(lán)色巨人戴上了紅帽子。即便是在幾個(gè)月前，萬人敬仰的IT公司IBM
would buy Red Hat, the biggest vendor of open-source software, would have been considered highly unlikely,
收購最大開源軟件供應(yīng)商紅帽子的想法幾乎是沒有可能的，
not least because of IBM's aversion to big mergers.
主要是因?yàn)镮BM的對大型企業(yè)并購的厭惡。
But on October 28th IBM announced that it would take over the firm for $34bn,
但在10月28日，IBM宣布將以340億美元的價(jià)格收購該公司
which represented a 63% premium over Red Hat's closing share price at the end of the previous week.
較上個(gè)周末紅帽子的收盤價(jià)溢價(jià)63%。
Red Hat is no household name, but in the IT industry the firm is considered a big success.
紅帽子并不是一個(gè)家喻戶曉的名字，但在IT行業(yè)，這家公司被認(rèn)為是一個(gè)巨大的成功。
Founded in 1993, it reached $2.9bn in revenue in its most recent fiscal year. It takes free open-source software, makes some improvements,
該公司成立于1993年，其最新財(cái)政年度收入到達(dá)29億美元。該公司對免費(fèi)的開源軟件進(jìn)行改善
bundles it with other tools and services such as technical support, and charges a monthly subscription fee.
將其與其他工具和技術(shù)支持等服務(wù)進(jìn)行捆綁，并收取月度訂閱費(fèi)。
The first product was a version of Linux, an operating system.
它的第一個(gè)產(chǎn)品是一版Linux，一個(gè)操作系統(tǒng)。
It later acquired or developed more and more pieces of software that are needed to power computing clouds.
之后公司獲得或開發(fā)了越來越多啟動計(jì)算云所需的軟件。
One of the latest additions to its collection was OpenShift, a program that allows computing tasks to be easily moved around between data centres.
該公司最新的產(chǎn)品之一是OpenShift，一個(gè)可以讓計(jì)算任務(wù)在兩個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)中心輕松轉(zhuǎn)移的程序。
IBM, for its part, has been struggling in recent years to transform itself from a firm which made most of its money from it services, software and mainframe computers
就其本身而言，IBM近幾年一直在努力將自己從一家主要依靠服務(wù)、軟件和大型計(jì)算機(jī)獲利的公司
to one that is based on cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI).
變成一個(gè)以云計(jì)算和人工智能（AI）為基礎(chǔ)的公司。
After 22 quarters of declining revenue, IBM seemed to be over the worst when its turnover started to increase early this year.
在連續(xù)22個(gè)季度利潤下滑后，IBM似乎熬過了最糟糕的時(shí)期—公司營業(yè)額在今年早期開始增長。
But in the most recent quarter, revenue dipped again.
但在最新一個(gè)季度中，利潤再次下跌。
The deal will probably mean that Ginni Rometty, the firm's chief executive, stays on for a few years to see through the integration.
該協(xié)議可能意味著公司的首席執(zhí)行官吉妮·羅睿蘭將繼續(xù)留任幾年，以幫助完成公司并購。
Analysts thought she was on her way out, not just because her strategy seemed to be failing,
之前分析家認(rèn)為她會離開公司，不僅僅是因?yàn)樗膽?zhàn)略似乎失敗了，
but because at 61, she is older than the standard retirement age for IBM bosses of 60.
還因?yàn)樗呀?jīng)61歲了，超過了IBM總裁的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)退休年齡—60歲。
More importantly, IBM hopes that the acquisition will give it a chance to catch up in the market for cloud computing.
更重要的是，IBM希望此次收購能給公司一個(gè)追趕云計(jì)算市場。
Big Blue failed to take the trend seriously in the late 2000s and decided not to invest in a network of huge data centres.
藍(lán)色巨人在21世紀(jì)后期沒能重視這種趨勢，并決定不投資大型數(shù)據(jù)網(wǎng)絡(luò)中心。
As a result it has fallen behind the big "public" clouds (as opposed to "private" ones, which only serve a particular company),
因此，它遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)落后于那些大型“公共”云（和僅服務(wù)于某一家公司的“私有”云相反），
in particular Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
尤其是亞馬遜網(wǎng)絡(luò)服務(wù)和微軟Azure。
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