Red Hat (RHT) Higher After Barron's Kicks-Up Takeover Talk Again

Shares of Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) are seeing some interest today after a weekend Barron's article kicked-up some takeover talk on the open source leader. Shares are up 3.3% in late-afternoon action.

The article suggested that Red Hat could be "in play" over the next year or so. With Orale (Nasdaq: ORCL) swooping in to acquire Sun Microsystem (NYSE: JAVA), as a savvy defensive move against IBM (NYSE: IBM), ISI Group technology analyst Bill Whyman said he views Red Hat as "valuable both to own and to keep out of your competitors' control."

Rumored suitors for Red Hat include IBM (NYSE: IBM), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL).

One potential deterrent to a deal is price. RHT trades at 25x forward earnings. Another potential deterrent is independence. If Red Hat is scooped up, some might be reluctant to use its service.

Whyman suggested that if Red Hat is bought, Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) too could become in play, if it isn't already.

Commenting on other tech deals, Whyman sees Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) involved in a sizable deal soon. He also thinks SAP (NYSE: SAP) can't remain independent forever, with IBM or Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) possibly acquiring it. Today, SAP Co-CEO Said No Comment on Microsoft takeover speculation.

Link to Barron's Article $

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