Red Hat nets Hell's Kitchen in stock deal

NEWS Linux vendor, Red Hat, has bought ecommerce payment-processing software company, Hell's Kitchen Systems (HKS). The deal is a stock transaction worth a potential $85.6m. Red Hat claimed the agreement will offer HKS's customers, which includes over 150 ISPs and online merchants, access to all the open source software and services provided by the Linux company. Mathew Szulik, president and CEO of Red Hat, said the purchase of HSK marked another step in Red Hat's plans to become a software company for Internet-based computing.