IBM's influence
I suspect that IBM will initially try to retain whatever Red Hat already has, but may at some point tweek it to work better with IBM's solutions [and vice versa]. Simply putting a LOT of effort on IBM-related development might be all they need to do to justify buying RH.
IBM isn't really like Microsoft or Google. They've been around a REALLY long time, and tend to play "the long game".
Biting the hand that feeds IT
