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Red Hat Not Seeing Microsoft, Ubuntu as Threats
Ian Price writes "Red Hat is shrugging off Microsoft's entry into the cluster computing space after Microsoft announced that it has completed the code for its Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 targeting high-performance computing. From the article: 'Scott Crenshaw, general manager of enterprise Linux platform at Red Hat, dismissed Microsoft's entry into cluster computing. "They're playing catch-up," he said. "Linux is often associated with high-performance computing, but Windows has never achieved that on a large scale."' Crenshaw also commented with respect to Ubuntu: 'Their user base is still small, so we're not seeing the impact of it [Ubuntu] so far.'"
Years and years and years.
They've had several clusters into the Top500 several times.
A couple examples are a NSCA self-made cluster of NT machines that reached rank 207 in June 2000 top500 list. It consisted of 256-processor production supercluster, which consists of 128 Hewlett-Packard machines with dual 550-MHz Intel Pentium III Xeon processors.
These early efforts were typified by statements like:
"Couldn't barely get the benchmark done before the entire cluster would go done"
"If one node failed the entire cluster would go down"
And stuff like that.
That's the first time NT posted a top500 standing. They had earlier efforts going back several years.
About every single top500 list since then had a Microsoft-based cluster somewere.. Until recently.
Now Linux, which started gaining ground about the same time that Microsoft started with clustering research, now dominates the top500 list.
Good luck on that one, MS. I also like how their P.R. stuff always makes it sound like Microsoft just started getting into clustering.
Actually, my impression is that the main reason why installing random packages on Ubuntu just works, unlike Fedora, is that almost all applications now have been packaged (un universe/multiverse) for specific debian/ubuntu version, whereas you get random rpm that have been compiled on some random rpm-based distro that might have different libraries than you have.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I agree with most of your comment. Here's where I take a different view --
Given that I'm not Microsoft, or Red Hat, I'd rather be a Red Hat stockholder than a Microsoft stockholder.
Also, I'd rather be monetizing services for rapidly spreading open-source software, than trying to get developing nations to pay for my proprietary software.
I urge you to focus on the direction and rate of the change, rather than the magnitude of the status quo.
There are too many people in the world not using computers yet. Eventually, most will. But if everyone paid Windows licensing fees, many developing nations would have to hand over most of their GNP to Microsoft. That's absurd!
In my humble opinion, it makes sense for India, China and several other developing countries to throw their collective might behind internationalized open-source software running on commodity hardware. When there are literally a million eyeballs scouring OSS for bugs, we'll see phenomenal changes in this playing field!
If intellectual property were enriched Uranium, intellectual property law would be the mechanism in an atomic bomb that prevents critical mass, and an economic boom.
-- Subvert the dominant paradigm. Repeat as desired. http://ownlifeful.com/
Ubuntu right now is your classic dotcom strategy -- blow through venture capital to get "eyeballs" and then figure out later how to build revenue out of that.
Close, but not quite. Ubuntu is a classic dotcom strategy by one of the winners in the dotcom game - and it's a safe bet that Shuttleworth is out to do it again. How did he win the first time? By building a highly visible company and then selling it, to great personal advantage. A lot of what Canonical is doing makes a lot more sense when you keep that in mind. They don't need to figure out how to build revenue, they just need to get eyeballs and market share, so that the company has considerable sale value.
As for Redhat, they probably don't consider Ubuntu to be a threat because they realise this. Redhat's market is, as has been noted, high-end enterprise users. That means that both Redhat and their users must be run by people with a deep understanding of the business world. Anybody with considerable business experience can see what Canonical are doing - it's not like they're trying to hide it, even if they don't go out and announce these things. The important thing is that enterprise users don't want to buy from a company who might not still be there in five years time. Redhat have 'staying power' - they've been through a lot and they're still playing at the top levels of the market, so they feel good to enterprise users. Canonical just doesn't smell like that. It smells like a rich kid's toy, and when he gets tired of playing he'll cash in and make a stupidly huge amount of money, and then the company could become anything. It's just not a safe bet that Canonical will still be there and doing the same things in five years. So enterprise customers are going to feel uneasy about Ubuntu, and go with the safer Redhat instead. Anything they want will just be duplicated by the Redhat engineers anyway.
Redhat are playing in the 'big business' game now. That means they have slightly perverse priorities, but they aren't stupid and neither are their customers. A lot of things change when your customers aren't stupid.
What benefit? Not wiping out your entire system every 6 months to keep it running at a usable pace. Predictable reliablity, etc.
I just don't have to reboot anymore.
It's worth the driver hell that one often has to go through on a new system. Systems shipped with Linux? Probably a great idea.