Linux vendors trumpet cost savings

While Microsoft has been advising open-source vendors not to focus on price as a primary competitive differentiator, the big Linux vendors--Red Hat, Novell (SUSE), and Canonical (Ubuntu)--apparently haven't received the memo. A quick look at their Web sites suggests that the Linux vendors want chief information officers to have their price tags top of mind.

Red Hat:

Novell:

Canonical:

And even Oracle, which usually doesn't paint itself as the low-cost leader, is making the pitch:

Microsoft's Windows Server revenue is down 29 percent. Meanwhile, Novell's and Red Hat's Linux businesses are thriving.

Maybe the Linux vendors know something that Microsoft doesn't?

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[jspaleta]

Matt,
I think you are completely wrong on this point. The low cost salespitch is just a salespitch... you still have to provide value for money to build a business around. It's not enough to be low cost, you still have to actually bring something valuable to the table for whatever price you charge. I don't think its appropriate to lump all linux vendors together so casually. Some of them are providing real value and building real businesses around that value..others are just trying to be the discount solution.

Let's take Oracle for example. How's Oracle's Ubreakable linux support business? Is it thriving as well?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10108675-16.html
You yourself even wrote about Oracle failing to be adopted. Last November. Has something changed since then? Why bother even including them. You know full well that their low price sales pitch is actually aimed at specifically undercutting Red Hat as an Oracle solutions provider. More than anyone else on your short list, Oracle is doing exactly what MS said you shouldn't do. There's no real value in Oracle's offering compared to Red Hat's.. its just a lower price solution...and that's exactly why Oracle's Linux isn't seeing wide adoption. They prove the point MS was trying to make. It is about value, not about price.

How about Canonical's business? Is it also thriving? You need to be very careful with how you portray Canonical as a business. There is no public information available which would indicate that its creating any substantial revenue from any of its portfolio of services. You can't point to any support subscription sales numbers. You can't point to any training sales numbers. Novell nor Red Hat are a surrogate as a performance metric for Canonical. Canonical's business model is constructed very differently than either. Canonical has yet to really show if any of their services are a good enough value for money to gain a critical mass of customers. Canonical doesn't talk about sales figures at all and focuses entirely on communicating Ubuntu deployment number estimates. Don't insinuate performance of a privately held company when its not there by associating them with successful public companies like Novell and Red Hat. We know what we know about Novell and Red Hat because therre is public information to review about their business. That does not exist for Canonical, nor does Canonical make any effort whatsoever to release financial information of any sort..

-jef

[jeffgtr60]

Interesting. Microsoft has been advertising the low cost of windows computers in its tv ads. Now they get a taste of their own medicine.

[monkeyfun14]

Too bad no one will even see these ads? The user has to actually know what the product is to see these claims.

[odubtaig]

Someone change the record, that bit's worn a groove.

[obvio-capitao]

The irony is that while Microsoft has been advising open-source vendors not to focus on price as a primary competitive differentiator, it has done exactly that against Apple: focused on price as a primary competitive differentiator. (Do you remember the "Apple tax" study, don't you?)

Note to Microsoft competitors: don't trust Microsoft's advices.