Guest post by Red Hat has announced a new program where customers would get higher service level guarantees and updates for up to 10 years for a new release instead of the usual 7 years for every release. “The targets for this are the most conservative companies currently on Unix-based systems and with a need for unusual levels of support,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president of Red Hat’s Platforms business unit.
If they want to start booting out legacy HPUX boxes they have to do this – though its quite a commitment, I hope they can profit enough to make it worthwhile.
Linux companies including Red Hat are still fixated on Linux as merely a replacement for Unix, and trying to grab the low hanging fruit of Sun migrations. I’m afraid that isn’t going to last forever, and unless Red Hat, especially Novell, and others expand into other areas where they face competitive threats, and by that I mean Windows Server, then the long-term prognosis does not look healthy.
Well, between Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, and this new “advanced mission critical” program, I don’t really see where the Red Hat community has left any bases uncovered. They seem to have everything covered from “EAT YOUR BRANE” to “I’m totally constipated” in their server line up.
Edited 2008-11-20 22:39 UTC