Posted on 02/19/2007 7:15:23 AM PST by N3WBI3
Red Hat Inc's CEO has said the company is encouraging customers to adopt Microsoft Corp's offer of support vouchers for Novell's Inc's rival Linux operating system in order to get the issue over with.
Microsoft announced in November 2006 that it would distribute 70,000 Linux support certificates a year for five years, at the cost of $240m as part of an interoperability and patent deal with Novell.
Speaking at the Merrill Lynch internet, software and services conference, Red Hat's CEO, Matthew Szulik, dismissed the impact that deal has had on Raleigh North Carolina-based Red Hat's business.
"I think that there has been a strong amount of external communication by Microsoft and Novell on this topic," he said. "We certainly expect that there will be those cases where customers will consume those coupons. We're certainly encouraging one or two customers to consume all of them, let's get this over with."
Microsoft and Novell have certainly been vocal about the customers they have encouraged to adopt the vouchers, announcing that Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, AIG Technologies, and most recently Wal-Mart, have signed on the dotted line.
In January the company's said that "35,000 new certificates for three-year priority support subscriptions to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server have been activated" since November last year.
Microsoft has committed to pay Novell for the certificates regardless of whether customers buy them, but Szulik suggested Red Hat is happy to see customers take Microsoft's money.
He also maintained that the company's own customers were not swayed by offers of apparently free support. "When you think about the amount of workload that's being placed on these technologies... free doesn't cut it," he said. "We're finding a more informed buyer; we're finding a more strategic buyer."
Szulik also dismissed Oracle Corp's attempt to under-cut it on Linux support on similar grounds, insisting that customers were unlikely to be convinced by cost savings that are a small percentage of their overall software spend.
"You look at the total cost of the stack," he said. "The purchase of an operating system and the support that comes with that is such a small percentage of the total cost, somebody who's getting ready to spend $19,000 on a database... that would likely be the higher price for discounting and concession.
"I don't think that customers want to boast about saving $5 a server if on December 24, if you're an online retailer, your systems fall over and collapse and you don't have the competency to support that," he added.
In October 2006 Oracle announced plans to support the Red Hat Enterprise Linux code base under its Unbreakable Linux 2.0 program, charging at least half the price of equivalent Red Hat support packages.
The program has not proved popular, however. In December Oracle's president Chuck Phillips said Unbreakable Linux was downloaded 9,000 times in the first 30 days. In comparison Red Hat's non-commercial Fedora Core 6 had an average of 12,500 installations per day in its first month.
Were I RedHat I would not dismiss Oracle yet. While UL has been falling flat on its face Ellison is one stubborn guy with a pile of cash and while its plain stupid for him to try and kill the goose. Probably would have been better for them to partner with RedHat rather than have a tantrum over JBoss..
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I think we're talking different markets here. Red Hat and Ubuntu are installed mostly by individual consumers. The Novell-Microsoft deal targets the business market.
Linux is the most expensive 'free' software you will ever use.
Even at that, a smart implementation like SUSE is much less expensive than Microsoft Vista.
Yes, since Solaris 10 for x86 and x64 is faster and better architected.
Source, Distrowatch.com :scroll down a little bit..
Microsoft, helping Linux limp across the line as they continue to bash the man.. ;)
->Solaris 10 for x86 and x64 is faster and better architected.
Solaris support costs significantly less as well.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/16/HNsunundercutsredhat_1.html?APPLICATIONS
Sun's Solaris annual support contracts range from $240 to $1,180 for one- or two-socket x86 servers, depending on whether the buyer chooses the "basic" or "premium" plan. Sun's basic plan costs about 40 percent less and the premium plan about 50 percent less than comparable Red Hat plans, said Sun spokesman Bob Wientzen.
Red Hat's Web site lists Red Hat Linux ES basic for $349 per year per system and Red Hat Linux AS premium for $2,499. A Red Hat spokesman did not return calls and an e-mail requesting comment, but after Oracle's move last fall, Red Hat chief executive officer Matthew Szulik said Red Hat would not lower its prices due to a competitor's price cuts.
Marc Fleury took his $300 million and left Red Hat and is now even supporting Vista on his blog.
http://marcf.blogspot.com/
lol, did you read what happened to him with his apple monitor?
hilarious!
BTW, I have a blogspot blog and you don't have much control over what what "ads" are posted on your website(Ad-Sense)... (I removed my adds because I couldn't filter them correctly)
LOL, you continue to have bad English. I simply posted a recent link from a respectable source, which concurs with my experience. You can post as much wishful BS as you want that Linux is better, but the fact you've admitted to recently taking a job at a Solaris shop yourself is hilarious.
He sounded pretty cheap considering he just took $300 million from Red Hat. If I was him I would have just given it away so I never had to look at it again and bought something bigger.
$400 for a cord? sheesh...
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