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Technology Stocks : Red Hat Software Inc. (Nasdq-RHAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (1082)	9/9/1999 8:56:00 AM
From: Eric Wells	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1794

>>Really, the only reason to use NT for a server >>application is because you might be unaware of the >>alternatives available, unless you are using clients that >>are specifically tied to Microsoftisms which limit >>compatibility and portability. Mitch - again thanks for your message. Keep in mind the following: the actual retail price of a piece of software is a minor component of the total cost of a software product to a corporate customer. In other words, when a corporate customer invests in a piece of software, only a small percentage (anywhere from 5%-10%) of that investment goes to paying for that software - the additional investment goes toward: 1. installation and deployment 2. conversion of existing systems 3. training 4. ongoing support If you view the above from the eyes of the CIO, NT looks very attractive. Why? Because in truth, NT is very easy to install and support. I've heard numerous IT managers make claims of how easy NT is - that one can "figure it out". Also keep in mind that there is a tremendous amount of books and training materials, as well as online sources of information available on NT. And there is a very large industry of IT professionals that has been built around the support of NT (the Microsoft Solution Provider Program and the Microsoft Certified Professional Program). Books, training materials, a professional support community, etc. - all these things are necessary for an operating system to be successful in the corporate market. Novell had all these things for Netware in its heyday in the early 90's. Microsoft has all these things now. Linux, to the best of my knowledge, has very little in this area. A software developer may look at Linux and say "this is a superior operating system - much better than NT". But a CIO may have a different view. Because the CIO is looking to get a working operating system that will result in the lowest costs in the areas listed above. In order for Linux to beat out NT, one of the following will have to occur: 1. Linux will have to be so much substantially better than NT to offset the costs listed above, in which Linux is lacking. <<or>> 2. Linux will have to have the same support infrastructure in place that NT has - namely, hundreds of books and training materials, a professional support community similar to Microsoft's Solution Provider Program and some sort of certification similar to Microsoft's Certified Professional Program. I don't believe that number 1 above is possible - even if one argues that Linux is better than NT now (and I'm not certain you can make a viable argument for this), I believe it would be difficult for Linux to be so much better than NT to make the CIO ignore the additional support, installation and training costs for Linux. So I believe the only option for Linux is number 2 - however this will be a difficult effort of coordination for the Linux community. Certainly books and training materials for Linux will be written (and some probably already have) - but different versions of Linux from different companies will complicate this. Forming a community of support professionals will be even more difficult - different Linux companies may work to form different communities in competing with one another. For example, I believe Red Hat is currently trying to form it's own community. In summary, the statistics show that it is definitely true that Linux has made some inroads in gaining some server market share. But I cannot help but believe that for Linux to pose any sort of challenge to NT, someone in the Linux community will have to do a very good job in addressing the the 80% of the operating system cost equation that the CIO focuses on. And I believe that the fragmented nature of the Linux community may prove this to be a challenge. Thanks, -Eric Wells