Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Oracle customers are talking, but what are they saying? (CNET)

March 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Oracle customers are talking, but what are they saying? (CNET)

TAGS: Open Source

Stephen Shankland of CNET has interesting commentary on Oracle's recent Linux customer press release. In that release Oracle trots out 26 customers that are buying into Oracle Unbreakable Linux.

Or are they?

As Stephen suggests, the press release is interesting for all that it does not say, as much as for what it does say:

• Although all 26 customers are buying Linux support from Oracle, only IHOP specifically says it's using Oracle's version of Linux; last week, Yahoo said separately it also is.

• Of the 10 quoted customers, four also say they're using other Oracle software. Many believe the most likely prospects for Oracle Linux support or software are those who already are customers for other Oracle software.

• Although Red Hat is the most likely competitor in the Linux deals, given its market dominance, IHOP is the only Oracle customer to say it switched from Red Hat.

As I mentioned, it's highly unclear that any (except IHOP, which makes a great butter-pecan syrup, btw) have actually dumped Red Hat. Or even decreased the amount of support/service they buy from Red Hat. Or even that they've opted to replace their Red Hat bits with Oracle (Linux) bits (because it is a Red Hat fork, whatever Oracle may say).

Surprising? No. Why would you dump your primary Linux vendor to shave a few pennies? In fact, my bet is that these same customers are continuing to pay Red Hat for RHEL...and are using Oracle for supplementary support. I have no data to support this hunch - just enough experience to know that for any mission critical application, which increasingly run on Linux, few are going to take the risk of moving to an uncertified OS simply to save a few pennies.

The devil is in the details. But few details are forthcoming.

(Of course, it's almost a guarantee that none of these 26 Oracle customers are using the Oracle Unbreakable Linux support for anything beyond the Linux that undergirds their Oracle databases. That's fine, as Oracle has always said this move was to better support its own database customers.)

Posted by Matt Asay on March 30, 2007 09:52 AM

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