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"Sun's View Is That Linux Is Nothing More Than Red Hat" - Forrester CEO

Linux in the News - Our Regular Round-Up
By Linux News Desk
Article Rating:
September 24, 2004 12:00 AM EDT
Reads:
 18,536
Forrester CEO: "Sun's view is that Linux is nothing more than Red Hat"

"Sun's view is that Linux is nothing more than Red Hat. The operating system is not about world peace and the charitable work of the world's great programmers. It's like every other operating system ever created: It's about the foibles, greed, mistakes and engineering prowess (or lack thereof) of one vendor -- in this case, Red Hat.

George Colony, CEO, Forrester Research, September 22, 2004
[reporting on a visit last week to Sun's Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer, and Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive]


Groklaw's "PJ": "GNU/Linux is a better mousetrap"

"Sun's revealed strategy is built on a mistaken view of what GNU/Linux is. The problem with building your plans on a mistaken fantasy or a wish is that the rest of the world refuses to shake itself loose from reality. Reality doesn't care what your company wants or needs.

And the reality is that GNU/Linux is a better mousetrap. It wasn't started by any company, it is bigger than any company, it depends on no company, and if they all went out of business tomorrow, it would continue. That's one big reason why companies should switch to it at their earliest opportunity, by the way. There is no vendor lock-in. If, worst-case scenario, your vendor did shut down, you won't be left stranded with software that you can't continue to use. You can always use it. The GPL guarantees it. And there will always be a way to get it updated, vendor or no vendor. If I were a business, what I would do to protect my business is hire a whole lot of Linux guys ASAP, and then I'd be set for life, dependent on no one."

Pamela Jones, Groklaw editor and founder, September 24, 2004


Stacey Quandt: "A move by Sun into the embedded space does not make sense"

"MontaVista is a key competitor of Sun's within the low-end network space. If MontaVista is acquired by Sun, it would signal that Sun's management starting with Scott McNealy doesn't have confidence in the future of Solaris in telecommunications segment. The potential acquisition of MontaVista would also communicate a willingness on Sun's part to acquire a competitor in order to kill it."

Stacey Quandt, a senior business analyst with the Robert Frances Group, September 23, 2004
[commenting on rumors that Sun may move into the embedded space]

Published September 24, 2004 – Reads 18,536
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Most Recent Comments
rob louis oswald 12/18/04 07:05:11 PM EST

i would like to get a copy of linux any copy can i download it free were
PCM2 09/24/04 07:43:39 AM EDT

Sun's position is that Red Hat can't support mission-critical enterprise infrastructure to the extent to which Sun's products and its service organization is able. It's not like they're trying to destroy Linux. They're just trying to discredit their competition. They're well aware that Linux will go on as always, supported by the OSS community, no matter what they say -- and the JDS will continue to benefit from that.
Yaztromo 09/24/04 07:42:17 AM EDT

Red Hat sells Linux. Sun sells Linux in the form of JDS. Sun is coming up with a strategy to encourage potential buyers to purchase from them by claiming that Red Hat isn't up to handling large enterprise accounts.

This is what competition is all about, folks. One of the great things about Open Source is that we can have multiple competing distributions. Mandrake and SuSe aren't buddy-buddy with Red Hat -- they compete with them as well. Do you somehow think that when they're competing with Red Hat for an account that they don't go in and try to show the potential buyer how they are better that Red Hat, or where Red Hat's weaknesses (perceived or otherwise) are?

This is the nature of competition. It doesn't mean that Sun is anti-Linux.
EndGame 09/24/04 07:40:20 AM EDT

Sun's plan in the short-term is to gradually lose all of their customers by taking the middle of the road in all cases, until they promptly run themselves out of business.