Sandeep Sehgal, former software head, IBM’s government business has been chosen as national manager to head the government vertical for open source solutions provider Red Hat. Sehgal has also worked with L&T, HCL and Novell.

According to Red Hat, Sehgal, would be responsible for identifying opportunities with the government to optimise computing by the use of Linux, as various state governments were turning to open source and also showed inclination towards policies such as the Open Document Format.

Welcoming Sehgal to Red Hat, Nandu Pradhan, president and managing director of the company said, "Linux as a technology platform has arrived and is poised for explosive growth. This is an exciting time for the entire open source movement in India and I look forward to Sandeep's focus on driving our government strategy."