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Technology Stocks : Red Hat Software Inc. (Nasdq-RHAT)

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To: Doug B. who wrote (641)8/17/1999 9:13:00 AM
From: guerillero.de  Read Replies (1) of 1794
 
"If Dell preloads Red Hat on machines, they will have to ensure that Red Hat supports all aspects of the hardware on the machines BEFORE they go on the market, which means that they will have to pay Red Hat to develop the software."

Well, it depends. First of all, I am not sure whether Red Hat really wants to put up with the hassle to develop some special driver for some special hardware. But more important: if Dell wants to sell a preconfigured LINUX machine, it would be the easiest to build this machine from components which are already supported by LINUX. This could be a requirement when they select the component vendor.

"... Dell. They are not an OS development company."
Neither is Red Hat. LINUX is not developed by Red Hat. They bundle it and support it, and perhaps develop some tools for easier configuration, but they are NOT developing the OS.

IMHO, it is just a matter of volume whether it makes sense for a PC manufacturer to build up LINUX skills. I agree with you that it is likely that Dell currently does not want to be involved in OS support, but what if it becomes profitable to do so? I see the major challenge and the major value added by companies like Red Hat or SuSe in providing a bundle of LINUX which is highly likely to run on a broad variety of machines (support for all kind of different components). If you have a well-defined set of components (because you assemble the PC), this added value becomes less important. You just need a LINUX configuration which suits your hardware. I am confident that this could be done by a very limited number of people (2-3).

Best regards,
g.
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