Red
Hat's Enterprise Strategy
Red
Hat has been growing up, learning how to be an Enterprise Vendor.
In
2001, customers like Wall Street told them, CTO Michael Tiemann
says, "you don't support the data center ecosystem."
But now with the Advanced Server product and changes in how
they serve their customers (like going to a 12 to 18 month release
cycle for Advanced Server - Data Centers don't want to upgrade
every six months), things are changing.
They
are working hard to certify Red Hat as being compatible for
important applications so the customers will see fewer problems at
each upgrade. They don't ever expect to get to, for example, the 14,000
applications Sun's Solaris enjoys, but they've gone from 12 last
year to dozens today and expect the number to continue to growth
rapidly.
Red
Hat is continuing to focus on the server.
It's not that they wouldn't like to see Linux on the
desktop (and of course, some of their product lands there), but
rather that they see it as an issue of market readiness.
Tiemann sees 100% of the market as ready for Linux on
servers and only a very small percentage as ready for the desktop.
"We'll wait," he says.
We
asked him if he could see a change in who was using Linux, since a
big buy-in by scientists and computer companies was nice but a
little too geeky for proof. He
pointed out that while in the industry he did have lots of users
at places like Dell, Oracle, and Amazon and in the early user
community on Wall Street, he was now starting to see more business
users in segments like car dealers and film makers (DreamWorks,
Pixar and the other studios are all major Linux users).
It's progress.
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