IBM standing in the way of Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux adoption
By George Gardner
IBM guarantees its products will work with Red Hat’s version of Linux; although, they are being very cautious in adopting support for Oracle Corporation’s Unbreakable Linux, despite the fact that Oracle’s distribution is a mere clone.
Oracle Corporation’s Unbreakable Linux became widely available in October of last year, and is based on the much popular Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution. The only difference, according to Oracle, is the claim to provide cheaper support for their customers.
On Friday, Matthew McMahon, a spokesman for IBM, stated they are not ready to guarantee their software to be compatible with Oracle’s version of Linux. If any compatibility issue is raised between the two, it will be strictly up to Oracle to provide a fix.
Oracle not only claims their version to be identical to Red Hat Linux, but says software that was written for Red Had will run consistently on their version as well; this is still not enough for IBM to support their software on the new Linux distribution.
Instead, IBM is taking the safe approach by waiting to see if any software compatibility issues arise.
“We are going to wait and see if there is traction in the marketplace,” McMahon said. “If clients want it (Oracle), then we will support it.”
However, analysts are claiming that consumers want to be assured of compatibility before switching to Oracle, and this remains one of Red Hat’s strongest selling points. Red Hat provides an assurance of compatibility among over 2,700 business software packages; in which, their products are 100% compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
“What Red Hat is selling to the customer is peace of mind. Oracle cannot do that because it is unable to certify comparability,” said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research.
IBM’s denial of support, for Oracle, is causing uncertainty with companies in adopting the OS. IBM sells widely used software (DB2 database, Tivoli software) that corporations use to run sizable computer networks. Without a compatibility guarantee, businesses simply can’t afford to take chances with Oracle.
Oracle spokeswoman, Deborah Hellinger, declined to say how the company would respond if it’s Linux customers were to have issues with 3rd party software; although, Oracle may be taking the safe approach along with IBM.
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February 27th, 2007
Another Crack In Oracle’s Unbreakable Strategy
So IBM just announced that they are not certifying Unbreakable Linux to be compatible with their software. This spells trouble for the struggling “distribution”. Oracle was already having difficulty getting people to sign up to their bargai…
February 27th, 2007
oracle’s plan to undercut the actual provider of their linux software (redhat) is farcical.
The actual revenue generated by selling a linux distribution is insignificant compared to the price of Oracle software.
Oracle should stick with their core competency - this current strategy is just causing ill will.
February 27th, 2007
ًwell, don’t expect much from Oracle or IBM. IBM knows very well that if Oracle starts to grow its OS market, then the first one will suffer is IBM. Currently, IBM takes advantage of Red Hat since it’s the biggest sponsor, thus they make sure that the RHEL future releases will be in their advantages.
Oracle on the other hand, got into this market for one reason, teach Red Hat to respect them :) Let’s watch the games, and I am sure the future will have more about this :)
February 27th, 2007
IBM se recusa a dar suporte ao Linux da Oracle (Unbreakable)
A IBM garante que os seus produtos funcionarão com a versão Redhat Linux; embora, eles estejam sendo muito cautelosos na adoção de suporte ao Unbreakable Linux, distribuição Corporativa da Oracle, apesar de que a distribuição da Oracle ser…
February 27th, 2007
IBM isn’t standing in the way of Oracle’s “unbreakable” Linux. No one wants it.
What Oracle marketing idiot thought it was a good idea to call any software unbreakable. I hope the first time someone’s box crashes Oracle gets sued for violating the implied warranty and the customer’s reasonable expectation that the software is unbreakable.
Larry should stick to what he knows. He hasn’t even finished wrecking PeopleSoft yet.
March 4th, 2007
Well, at my work we were primarily a Solaris/SPARC shop (with a little bit of SUSE) but we recently chose Oracle Linux. Why Oracle over Red Hat?
1) RHEL works better with Oracle RDBMS (esp RAC) than SUSE
2) Oracle Linux is cheaper for us than RHEL
3) Oracle displayed better customer service/account management than Red Hat
4) Oracle for both DB/Apps & OS means one less vendor to deal with — which means one less opportunity to pass the buck — which made our senior management more comfortable
I am sure my work is not the only organization in this situation. I think Oracle Linux has a bright future.
April 19th, 2008
IBM has thousands of softwares.
Which software did IBM not certify to work with Oracle ?
The article is ambiguous.
If the software worked before with oracle, then it would likely work in the future.
Couldn’t oracle just charge the customer and collaborate with IBM to support the combination. Whatever the software is ?