Redhat and Intel Team Up for Linux Business

Red Hat and Intel announced today at LinuxWorld Boston that they would be entering a partnership to help customers "plan for, accelerate and optimize their deployments of Linux solutions." From the article: "'We're responding to what customers have told us they really need to support their advanced deployments of Linux and open source,' said Tim Yeaton, executive vice president of Enterprise Solutions at Red Hat. 'The programs Intel and Red Hat have selected are aimed at equipping customers with in-depth domain knowledge and providing hard core data to make complex architectural decisions.'"

Comments

This is HUGE!

[Iago515]

In my opinion, it may look small, but the simple fact that Intel is partnering with a Linux distro will mean that other hardware vendors will accelerate their development for Linux. This, in my opinion is still one of the biggest hurdles. I'm not a developer and think that those who are are doing a great job, but I still have hardware problems (HP LaserJet 1000 on SuSE, tv cards, etc.).

Let's see what else comes out of this, but I think it's a wake-up call to other hardware vendors.

Re:Proofs of Concept

[Syberghost]

So... when the customers are done with their proofs of concept, will they then build out their apps on the AMD boxes in their own datacenters?

Some. But most will continue to use Intel for the near future, and even if in the farther future AMD passes Intel in Enterprise server sales, this'll still be worth Intel's time because they're not just competing with AMD; they're also competing with Sun and IBM in the server space. Linux competes with that even more (currently) than it does with Windows, in my opinion.

I personally prefer Ubuntu on AMD, but the Fortune 500 company for which I work uses RedHat on Intel, and it's a joy to work with but could be better. Hopefully this will help make it better.

Intel is not just processors

[linuxwrangler]

For all the other posters talking only about "Intel Architecture", remember that Intel is more than processors. They make network switches, motherboards, NICs, etc.

Here's something to watch: Intel has an entire line of telephony products (Dialogic) but the lack of open-source drivers has frustrated some development efforts. This is probably about to change. I spent some time at the Intel booth at VON in San Jose last month and he mentioned that Intel plans to open-source the Dialogic drivers over the next few months. This would be great news for those developing Linux telephony apps.

interesting

[goldfita]

Redhat wanted to interview me for a virtualization development position a few days ago. This sounds like good news for anyone working with open source. But I wonder what Intel is getting out of it. Or are they anticipating future rewards when open source has more market share?

Re:interesting

[Jason Earl]

Intel sells hardware, but for the hardware to be useful it needs software. Therefore when purchasing Intel solutions purchasers always have to look at the total price of the package including software. Commodity software lowers the overal price of the solution without touching Intel's margins at all. That makes it possible for Intel to sell the total solution at a lower price meaning more sales at the same profitability per sale.

This is basically what Microsoft has been doing to the hardware manufacturers for years. Because there was competition on the hardware side hardware prices have dropped dramatically over the years and Microsoft has ridden that wave to ever increasing sales and profit levels. Well, now Intel is finally wising up and realising that turnabout is fair play.

Long story made short. It is in Intel's best interest to see more competition in the software space as long as the software all runs on its chips.

Re:interesting

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Long story made short. It is in Intel's best interest to see more competition in the software space as long as the software all runs on its chips.

This announcement coupled with the recent, exclusive, partnership with Apple makes me think that Intel REALLY wants to get out of bed with Microsoft and the "WinTel" alliance. So what does Microsoft do now? Make their stuff work better on AMD and promote them? Cripple their support on Intel and let the benchmarkers talk about it? Price leverage?

It's interesting that Intel is dancing with others than brung them, and they think they can get away with it. They must have calculated the repercussions MS would impose--but decided they had to support multiple OSes anyway.

Very interesting. The upside is that if it works, both OS X and RH will have Intel-only optimizations, and as those platforms grow, AMD will be marginalized. The downside would be a strong AMD-MS alliance, such that neither OS X nor RH grow and Intel is relegated to being the CPU for "other" OSes but AMD is the best choice for Windows.

One can only surmise that Intel is seeing the alternative OSes reaching critical mass and preparing to break out of their niche markets, and Intel wants to be the favorite when that happens. And there are smart people at Intel that wouldn't make that forecast lightly...

Actually, Intel indirectly employs Linus....

[Glasswire]

Intel, as one of the founders and main supporter of the Open Source Development Lab where Linus works and I think most of the lab activity for OSDL still takes place at an ex-Intel building in Beaverton, OR.

Intel has been helping to make Linux better for years and doesn't get the credit for the millions of dollars and other resources it has put into Open Source.

Re:Something Wicked this way Comes

[NerveGas]

It does seem odd at first glance, but look at the current CPU market: AMD is taking significant market share from Intel, and the lucrative part at that. When AMD released the Opteron, they cought Intel with their pants - and shorts - down, and Intel is still trying to come up with a viable response. They've been grasping around for anything to try and get numbers back up.

So... being a good bedfellow of Intel, Microsoft kindly delayed the release of a 64-bit OS for quite some time, until Intel had a 64-bit chip ready as well. The thinking was that without a OS that used the 64-bitness, extra registers, and had a scheduler that understood the complexities of obtaining maximum performance out of a NUMA architecture, the Opteron would surely turn out to be a flop. Right?

Wrong. They forgot about Linux. Linux could already support 64 bits, and IBM had poured some VERY significant NUMA experience and technology into Linux. Linux completely carried the Opteron sales for at least the first year. It might have been two, but I don't recall off of the top of my head.

So... here's Intel right now, trying desperately to find a way to at least stop the bleeding on the high-end server market. It's not far-fetched to think that they said "Hey... Linux carried the Opteron, and has worked against us. It's helped AMD and IBM, maybe we should jump on that train, too."

Of course, that attributes much more intelligence to Intel's decision-makers than they have hitherto demonstrated, but it's possible.