Tom Adelstein, distinguished analyst at Hiser + Adelstein in New York,
says in his review today on Linux Journal that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) destkop (not Fedora)–this is the one selling in units of 10 for $2,500–“meets and exceeds” the criteria established by the Open Source Maturity Model and most surely the standards established by the legacy desktop system many organizations are finding to be unacceptably compromised and overbought.
Adelstein: Red Hat Desktop Goes to the Head of the Class
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Eugenia Loli
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He seems always positive about everything in his reviews, both of NLD (Novel) and RHEL. He does not take up their weak side compare to competitors and sometimes pick up stuff that has been in Linux dists since beginning (remote administration).
$250 for a single workstation license? thats more expensive than windows and twice as much as a Solaris JDS license. Doesn’t make good business sense to use RedHat for the Enterprise desktop.
Sure it does. Corporations expect software to be expensive. Bosses think more expensive = better.
Did you read the part labeled “hard questions”?
We are asking some difficult questions about enterprise support in this series. In fairness, we asked each company the same ones (see Resources). Let’s look at how Red Hat answers those questions.
I didn’t see any “y0u sux0rz” in that section but still its not a free pass commercial.
Anybody buying in any quantity would get a discount above and beyond that price. RedHat simply puts that on their website in quantity for budgeting reasons.
Anybody buying in any quantity would get a discount above and beyond that price. RedHat simply puts that on their website in quantity for budgeting reasons.
Not to sound like a SUN fan boy but they would still have to beat the JDS $100 a license deal. Even then with Solaris you get a mature OS with a very practical desktop.
Read that section he has been putting in each recent review where he asks each company a series of questions. I have not been a big RedHat fan, but RedHat gave the best answers yet. If you are looking at Linux from the perspective off deploying to an enterprise, the answers from Xandros and Sun would not make you feel as comfortable. Mr Adelstein does not exactly say bad things about the companies, but the inferences are pretty clear. And, I think he is trying to point up the strength of the Enterprise Linux distros to show how thet are ready for real deployment. There are enough people writing negative things. Lets show how we can do the job.
$250 per machine does seem kind of expensive and I am sure that is one reason why the distro is not being marketed to consumers. If is can be deployed easily and managed easily, then $250 per machine could be cheap for a company. The biggest part of the cost is not the purchase price, it is maintenance.
Finally, these articles have made me want to see and use these distros to try them out. That may be tough for me as an end user, but it tells me he is striking the right chord.
Damn that Log in screen looks good!
$250 for a single workstation license? thats more expensive than windows and twice as much as a Solaris JDS license. Doesn’t make good business sense to use RedHat for the Enterprise desktop.
Except that workstation license includes a contact management suite, office suite, and all kinds of other things that you would normally pay hundreds of dollars extra for if you bought Windows. Suddenly, your argument doesn’t make much sense.
This article blurb made no sense…
“Except that workstation license includes a contact management suite, office suite, and all kinds of other things that you would normally pay hundreds of dollars extra for if you bought Windows. Suddenly, your argument doesn’t make much sense”
The argument makes a lot of sense because comparable desktop offerings from Suse, Sun, Xandros and Linspire offer much more funtionality and cost at least 60% less and have every office functionality you will ever need. I run a Suse 9.2 professional and that provides me with every tool I need to manage anything from 1 to 10,000 systems and I paid a lot less than $100 for it—retail. Time will prove me right that the RedHat model is a disaster for Linux. CTO’s may not
be the brightest on the block but they will soon figure out that RedHat is the biggest scam in computing today.
The value that is. I do like readhat, but they are simply pricing themselves out of a market IMO. If anyone saw my previous notes on RH support they know what I think — I cannot imagine how terrible desktop support coming from them would be. I suppose they do offer a host of tools allowing you to setup a single box, and then install the rest of your network in set-it-and-forget-it style. This is the only major plus I see.
They are infact pricing themselvs out of a market but that is what they want to do.
I have an example that might sting a bit cause its kind of direct but should get the point across.
Starbucks can charge less than $5 a coffee, it only costs 4 cents to make. Their prices are high because they want to attract a certain customer; white preppy types who have a place to get together. They don’t want lower class minoritys hanging around or in the store so they charge alot of money. The same thing goes for clubs, resturants and clothing stores. Sure they get more business if they have cheap clothing mixed with expensive clothing, after all that attracts two types of customers right? well not really, once poor people start shoping there it no longer makes these yuppies feel important, and they move to the next overpriced place to spend their money. Red Hat is doing the same thing in a way, there is more money in the “rich preppys” than there is for us poor “minoritys” trying to be self important too.
Starbucks can charge less than $5 a coffee, it only costs 4 cents to make. Their prices are high because they want to attract a certain customer; white preppy types who have a place to get together. They don’t want lower class minoritys hanging around or in the store so they charge alot of money. The same thing goes for clubs, resturants and clothing stores. Sure they get more business if they have cheap clothing mixed with expensive clothing, after all that attracts two types of customers right? well not really, once poor people start shoping there it no longer makes these yuppies feel important, and they move to the next overpriced place to spend their money. Red Hat is doing the same thing in a way, there is more money in the “rich preppys” than there is for us poor “minoritys” trying to be self important too.
The problem with that analogy is that most CIO’s are former accountants who don’t even want to pay for simple support plans or pay to upgrade 3 year old hardware. Expensive doesn’t mean better..look at IBM hardware.
You’re probably right pertaining to the upgrade cycle but I disagree with support. It’s all about covering your a$$ up on the mountain.
“expensive doesn’t mean better”
No, not always. But in this case RedHat is an exceptionally high quality product so yes, it does. Their sales continue to increase year/quarter after year. That leads me to believe atleast one of your comments is incorrect, either they infact do think its better quality, or they do see value in support.
I don’t buy that at all. Apple freaks can make these claims, but I don’t think readhat has anywhere near enough TEH SEXAY to pull that off, and they don’t have slick-ass hardware to push, either.
You failed to understand RHEL is aiming for entreprise not average users therefore comparing hardwares (Apple) and entreprise OS is apple and orange.
You failed to understand RHEL is aiming for entreprise not average users therefore comparing hardwares (Apple) and entreprise OS is apple and orange.
Last time i checked Apple has and enterprise offering. Either way i have never looked at their pricing scheme from a consumer viewpoint since i work in the industry and have been known on an odd occasion to make IT purchasing decisions. Once again $250 a license is not a good deal for the quality of the product they are trying to push.
“They don’t want lower class minoritys hanging around or in the store so they charge alot of money”
Guess you don’t think there are any poor white people, trailer park trash. Nice job of keeping stereotypes and racism alive. You certainly haven’t had the pleasure of dealing with the mud-stompin’, straw chewin’, grubby hillbillies that walk through our doors trying to sell us some crap, trying to get enough money for that next six pack of Milwaukee’s Best.
Don’t be an ass, of course white trash isn’t wanted there either but I’m not the racist for pointing it out, the customers are the racists for taking business elsewhere when minoritys come around.. if a black family moves onto your street you’ll see 3 people move out within the year. I’m not a racist for pointing it out you troll.
Stick to the message of the analogy not trying to nit pick one line into a flamewar. Context, its what makes this whole language thing work, look it up.