[Discuss] Oracle Linux, going after CentOs

[Jerry Feldman]

On 07/26/2012 05:12 PM, Richard Pieri wrote:
> On 7/26/2012 2:34 PM, Tom Metro wrote:
>> I doubt it. Why bother setting up a situation where you have backhanded
>> leverage over a competitor when it is a much clearer path to simply
>> transition customers from your own free product to your own paid
>> product, and not involve the competitor at all.
>
> RHEL is the dominant enterprise Linux.  Transitioning customers to a
> non-RHEL Oracle Linux means losing customers.  Oracle can't kill Red
> Hat, nor can it take over Red Hat.  IBM, Intel and the other big Red
> Hat partners would block that.  Oracle won't become a Red Hat VAR like
> IBM.  Ellison burned that bridge with SunOS and Ksplice.  Can't ignore
> 'em.  Can't beat 'em.  Won't join 'em.  What's left?
>
> Blackmail.  Leverage.
>
Basicly, it is a way to lock in customers. IBM did that years ago on
their mainframes, Microsoft does it. You get your sales people into a
company and give them a story like you'll get much better performance
from your Oracle DB if you use Oracle Linux. They'll have to back up
those claims because corporate IT is pretty sophisticated. It is also
about support. You currently have Oracle support for your DB, now use
the same people for the OS. I think they are going more after the
vertical market.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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