Red Hat hopes to solidify lead with new Linux

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Red Hat faces a lengthening list of rivals, but the company hopes to cement its lead in the Linux market Wednesday with its latest version of the open-source operating system.

The Raleigh, N.C.-based company plans to launch Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 at a San Francisco event Wednesday. It's the first major update to the company's flagship Linux product in more than two years.

Though Red Hat still dominates Linux, a lot has changed in that time. Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server beat Red Hat to the punch with a major new feature, the Xen virtualization software.

Oracle has entered the market with a clone of Red Hat's operating system. Ubuntu is making inroads with strong ties to open-source community volunteers. And Sun Microsystems--for years Red Hat's prime target--is fighting back by bringing its Solaris operating system to widely used x86 servers and making it open-source software as well.

"Red Hat continues to be the vendor capturing the lion's share of revenue and unit shipments for worldwide Linux operating system shipments."

--Al Gillen,
analyst, IDC

"There is disruption from below from the community (Linux versions) and much stronger competition from its peer group," said 451 Group analyst Raven Zachary. "This will take years to play out, but I see Red Hat having less differentiation from other offerings over time."

Red Hat is still on the offensive, though. In its most recent publicly reported quarter, its revenue increased 45 percent to $105 million, 84 percent of that coming through recurring support subscription contracts. Though profit dropped 37 percent to $15.5 million, much of that was from higher expenses stemming from the acquisition of JBoss, a supplier of open-source Java server software that has provided Red Hat with its biggest opportunity for market expansion.

"Red Hat continues to be the vendor capturing the lion's share of revenue and unit shipments for worldwide Linux operating system shipments," said IDC analyst Al Gillen. Though Novell has remained relevant, the overall balance between the two Linux powers "hasn't shifted dramatically," he said.

RHEL 5's biggest new feature, hands down, is Xen virtualization. The promise of virtualization software, which lets a single machine run multiple operating systems in separate partitions called virtual machines, is that a single computer can replace several inefficiently used ones. In the longer term, virtualization also permits software to be moved--sometimes while running--from one computer to another, which opens the door for higher reliability and a fluidly responding computer room.

Video: Red Hat's big Linux update
Red Hat aims to strengthen leadership role with new Linux release.

Accompanying the virtualization promise, though, are difficulties. Administrators need new management tools, software licensing becomes more complicated, and the underlying technology must be certified to work with a multitude of software and hardware options.

Red Hat will permit up to four virtual machines to run atop RHEL 5 Server, but it's adding a new product called RHEL Advanced Platform that supports unlimited virtual machines and includes the company's Global File System software.

Virtualization is moving to mainstream servers using x86 processors such as Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron, but Red Hat isn't the only one making the push. It's not even the only one pushing Xen, which also is commercialized by XenSource and included in Novell's rival product.

"This is the beginning of (Red Hat's) serious endeavor. There's a lot at stake," Gartner analyst George Weiss said. "There's Novell and Virtual iron, Microsoft is coming along, then there's VMware," which already dominates the x86 server virtualization market.

[richto]

Still playing catchup with Windows...

Still way behind the functionality in Windows Server 2003 R2.....

[richto]

Still playing catchup with Windows...

Still way behind the functionality in Windows Server 2003 R2.....

[Penguinisto]

RHEL: Still Stomping The Competition Flat.

The RHEL series is among the top-end distros out there. It's ungodly stable, all patched are back-ported to earlier versions, and aside from a support subscription, is the least costly in town (CALs? We don't need no stinking CALs...).

Besides, what other Server package has a 100% free variant (CentOS) based on the exact same source code?

If you want something that sorta-works and lets you point-n-click your way to semi-functionality, go get Windows. When you want a REAL server operating system, step up to RHEL.

(I also use SuSE Enterprise Linux Server, but I gotta tell you - RHEL tops it easily in features and ease-of-use).

/P

[Penguinisto]

RHEL: Still Stomping The Competition Flat.

The RHEL series is among the top-end distros out there. It's ungodly stable, all patched are back-ported to earlier versions, and aside from a support subscription, is the least costly in town (CALs? We don't need no stinking CALs...).

Besides, what other Server package has a 100% free variant (CentOS) based on the exact same source code?

If you want something that sorta-works and lets you point-n-click your way to semi-functionality, go get Windows. When you want a REAL server operating system, step up to RHEL.

(I also use SuSE Enterprise Linux Server, but I gotta tell you - RHEL tops it easily in features and ease-of-use).

/P

[Razzl]

Little Napoleons

It's pretty amusing to listen to a guy ensconced in his little world go crowing about a small thing when big fires are burning in the larger world.

We're in a dramatic moment when the giant monopoly that sits on 95% of the world's desktops has made a serious error in releasing the newest version of its OS in an unfinished state and there's now a growing hunger among pc users to find out more about Linux and Mac, which sit on less than 4% of the world's desktops each. Apple will undoubtedly make some market share this year, though they don't need this to survive--they've got their niche already carved out. Linux, on the other hand, has a golden opportunity to expand into the "real" world of computer desktops if the "community" can rally around a single distro that hardware makers consider comprehensive and polished enough to offer on machines sold at retail.

The mission of the moment for Linux fans, programmers, and users is to think about this question real hard. Sitting in your closet making smug idiot comments about Microsoft products, which will be totally ignored, is wasting your brain cells. If Red Hat is such an excellent distribution, then those who hold it in high regard need to start working on ways to get as many softwares and drivers as possible compatible with it, make sure its gui interface is attractive and easy to use, and pay some money up front for copies to keep the enterprise going. Do you understand the mission, or does wisecracking satisfy your delusions of grandeur?

[Razzl]

Little Napoleons

It's pretty amusing to listen to a guy ensconced in his little world go crowing about a small thing when big fires are burning in the larger world.

We're in a dramatic moment when the giant monopoly that sits on 95% of the world's desktops has made a serious error in releasing the newest version of its OS in an unfinished state and there's now a growing hunger among pc users to find out more about Linux and Mac, which sit on less than 4% of the world's desktops each. Apple will undoubtedly make some market share this year, though they don't need this to survive--they've got their niche already carved out. Linux, on the other hand, has a golden opportunity to expand into the "real" world of computer desktops if the "community" can rally around a single distro that hardware makers consider comprehensive and polished enough to offer on machines sold at retail.

The mission of the moment for Linux fans, programmers, and users is to think about this question real hard. Sitting in your closet making smug idiot comments about Microsoft products, which will be totally ignored, is wasting your brain cells. If Red Hat is such an excellent distribution, then those who hold it in high regard need to start working on ways to get as many softwares and drivers as possible compatible with it, make sure its gui interface is attractive and easy to use, and pay some money up front for copies to keep the enterprise going. Do you understand the mission, or does wisecracking satisfy your delusions of grandeur?

[paulghenderson]

But I'm worried

Having seen UNIX come out of Bell Labs and start out as a free alternative to the myriad of hardware specific OSes, and seeing it fragment into numerous hardware specific OSes (HPUX, AIX, SUNos, Tru64UNIX, etc, etc.), I'm worried about Linux and the numerous "flavors" now competing with each other for revenue. Seems like history repeating itself.

We all have to keep our eye on the mark and compete with Windows. If everyone pushed the plow in the same direction for one linux distribution, we'd make some headway. But now I see RHEL, SUSE, Gentoo, etc.

While I run 400+ servers on RHEL, and it is really, truly rock solid, I also run some SUSE, and you can't move easily from one to the other. Applications install differently. The directory structure is different. And application vendors only 'certify' to specific distributions, usually RHEL, but not always SUSE.

Feels like 1987 all over again...

[paulghenderson]

But I'm worried

Having seen UNIX come out of Bell Labs and start out as a free alternative to the myriad of hardware specific OSes, and seeing it fragment into numerous hardware specific OSes (HPUX, AIX, SUNos, Tru64UNIX, etc, etc.), I'm worried about Linux and the numerous "flavors" now competing with each other for revenue. Seems like history repeating itself.

We all have to keep our eye on the mark and compete with Windows. If everyone pushed the plow in the same direction for one linux distribution, we'd make some headway. But now I see RHEL, SUSE, Gentoo, etc.

While I run 400+ servers on RHEL, and it is really, truly rock solid, I also run some SUSE, and you can't move easily from one to the other. Applications install differently. The directory structure is different. And application vendors only 'certify' to specific distributions, usually RHEL, but not always SUSE.

Feels like 1987 all over again...

[wolivere]

Strange

When I want to catch and bait someone I toss a linux box in the DMZ.

Gurateed 48 hours an unpatched fresh install will have lots of fun issues.

But really, Linux.. are we talking FS or APP server or DB server?

I seriously can not remeber the last time I have had to deal with a hacked Windows server. Or a virus plaqued server.

But we really dont want to talk about reality, we prefer to talk more about the.. myth.

Intresting note on this is that Red Hat is not growing there market but, expanding profit on existing install base, with service contracts.

[wolivere]

Strange

When I want to catch and bait someone I toss a linux box in the DMZ.

Gurateed 48 hours an unpatched fresh install will have lots of fun issues.

But really, Linux.. are we talking FS or APP server or DB server?

I seriously can not remeber the last time I have had to deal with a hacked Windows server. Or a virus plaqued server.

But we really dont want to talk about reality, we prefer to talk more about the.. myth.

Intresting note on this is that Red Hat is not growing there market but, expanding profit on existing install base, with service contracts.