J_K9 @ Linux

Red Hat Strikes Back

November 7, 2006 on 8:32 pm | In Linux |

In the past two weeks, Oracle and Microsoft have fired salvos across — and some would say into — Red Hat’s bow.

The Novell/Microsoft partnership had the desired short-term effect both companies were looking for: Red Hat stock went down, said Red Hat general counsel Mark Webbink in today’s interview with SearchOpenSource.com. On the other hand, Webbink said, the hype surrounding the announcements from Oracle, Microsoft and Novell will be short- lived. In the end, Red Hat’s high customer satisfaction ratings will allow his company to ride the tide. In one year’s time, Webbink said, Red Hat will be the only Linux commercial vendor left standing, Microsoft support or not.

[..]

These companies are trying to do both. I can at least respect Microsoft, because they don’t pretend to be an open source company.

Ouch. Read the interview of Red Hat’s general counsel Mark Webbink here.

But the digs at Novell are still deeper: Novell is Now the New SCO:

Take the second highest ranked distribution of Linux on the planet. Show the community that your developers actually care about desktop Linux. Show your attention to detail. Show your sense of duty to the community by offering that desktop for free. Develop a robust community surrounding that distribution you offer for free. Now throw it all away in one swift, idiotic motion.

The different views on this deal are quite interesting, and those two are contrary to my first thoughts on it… However, as I’ve said before: we just have to wait and see what happens. That second article is extremely persuasive, though.

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I hate saying this but I have this feeling that the Novell/Microsoft deal, whatever it is they’re planning is only going to help Red Hat.

I know way more *nix users that don’t ever touch Microsoft products than I do with those that welcome it and run both. This is only going to benefit the IT folks who deal with Windows on desktops, exchange servers, etc that at times have to interact with the *nix Admins and their boxes they run.

This is going to make some turn away from Novell and SuSE and choose Red Hat. And as for the Oracle providing support, both times I had to deal with each of their support teams to fix problems, even though both we’re awful, Oracle was by far the worse. I’d rather call my local ISP support than Oracle. Awful awful awful, I don’t buy that they’ll knock Red Hat’s support around, the only way that’ll happen is they’ll provide it at cheaper costs, which then Red Hat will most likely match if they’re smart. This might even make Red Hat start giving away their RHEL products away for free again.

Comment by Drew — November 7, 2006 #
Using Opera 9.02 on Windows XP
I know a fair amount of *nix people, especially admins, who do work in multi-platforms environments though, and so this promise of improved compatibility might be a relief to them (less hassle administering the server).. But you’re right - I don’t know many *nix users who like Microsoft or any of their products (which is hardly surprising - I, for example, switched to Linux because I got fed up of XP and Microsoft’s attitude towards the “average customer”).

This might even make Red Hat start giving away their RHEL products away for free again.

True - although we’ve still got CentOS if they don’t

Oracle’s support is cheaper, and that’s why I don’t think it’ll be as good, as you said. Even if Red Hat lower the prices of the services they offer, they will no doubt keep the same quality of support that they have always boasted, and that should increase Red Hat’s market share… They think it will

Comment by J_K9 — November 8, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
This has inspired me to buy RHEL workstation, maybe for my parents for a stable PC base just to support Good ol’ red hat.

Not sure about Fedora though. I prefer debs to rpms.

Comment by Gunny — November 9, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
Also on a side note, as a SysAdmin at my job and previous jobs, all of them used Red Hat or some variant of it like CentOS. I’ve never worked in a commercial environment that used SuSE.

Comment by Drew — November 10, 2006 #
Using Opera 9.02 on Windows XP
I’ve never even heard of a commercial environment that uses SUSE (probably because I don’t wander around many of those environments, heh!), but have you seen RH on company desktops as well, or just on servers?

Comment by J_K9 — November 10, 2006 #
Using Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
At one job we had actual workstations with Red Hat installed, with licenses for each. Most of these users were Developers.

Comment by Drew — November 10, 2006 #
Using Opera 9.02 on Windows XP