Red Hat ANZ hands out 2026 partner awards

Red Hat has named the winners of its 2026 ANZ Partner Awards at the Red Hat ANZ Ecosystem Success Day, held in Australia earlier this week.

Microsoft took out the Hybrid Cloud Everywhere Award, Deloitte won the Virtualisation Transformation Award, and Advent One was named Container Champion. Integral received the Platform Modernisation Award, while Kestrel Eight claimed the Emerging Partner Award.

The event brought together Red Hat's ANZ senior leadership team alongside partners, including NVIDIA, Everpure, Datacom and Atturra, who shared how they are working with the vendor to deliver outcomes for joint customers.

John Nelson, head of ecosystem at Red Hat ANZ, said the day reinforced the importance of partner collaboration in the current market.

"Strategic collaboration is the only way to unlock growth in the current market conditions," Nelson said.

"When we align our strategies, align our capabilities, and put customer outcomes at the centre, we create exponential value for each of us."

AI adoption was a central theme at the event; Enzo Compagnoni highlighted how AI is driving business reinvention across the region, while also bringing rising technical complexity and resource constraints.

Red Hat's position, according to the company, is that open source gives customers the freedom to run AI workloads wherever it makes the most sense.

Guest speaker Tracey Spicer addressed AI ethics, trust and the impact of technology on workplaces.

Nelson said partners act as a growth engine for creating demand, co-selling and co-creating solutions, and that the momentum built at the event positions the ecosystem for the year ahead.