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Red Hat Moves Into European Linux Marketplace
bOnUs (among others) slipped us the skinny on a story @ silicon.com that talks about how Red Hat is gonna use recent cash injections from Dell, Oracle and IBM to increase its presence in the heart of S.u.S.E. territory, AKA Europe. Normal business expansion in an increasingly borderless world? An attempt at creating Red Hat World Domination? This can be interpreted either way.
While world domination might be the trademark of Wall Street (as enshrined in US corporate law), I'd like to respectfully point out that other countries might not share the same extreme values. A study of the best US corporation compared with the second best revealed a long-term vision and strong NON-financial values where critical to their success. Sure you can be as successful as Bill Gates at the cost of half the planet hating your guts/products but then a few hundred billion will smooth that burden, right? Frankly, from the point of view of Wall Street, they wouldn't care less if Red Hat staff stripped naked and ran a circus because next year there will be another fad, another media frenzy, another roll of the dice. As the day traders are finding out with the brokerage fees and vigorish (mandatory payments to the dealer) the only people guarenteed to make money are the financial wheeler-dealers (guess who's pocket their mulimillion dollar bonuses are coming out of?). Now capital markets have a role but they are not the end-all and be-all that some people think. Basically companies are trading labor, goods or services to satisfy the wishes of consumers and if what you have to offer is superior and at the low-cost end of the efficiency spectrum, then natural dominance results. Growth for the sake of growth is rather pointless. Afterall, in biology we call unlimited growth a cancer.
So I wish Red Hat luck along with the rest of the Linux distributors.
LL
I disagree with it being an attempt at "world domination". If people in Europe prefer SuSE RedHat just won't be sucessful over there. RedHat won't be able to force people to use it, but since I like RedHat, I wish them the best.
.. booohoo), slackware, redhat and suse. I ended up using SuSE simply because it was the best (most up to date imho) distro on the cd's.
.. I only found slackware 4.0 at a decent price. RedHat beeing sold at $70 , no debian or suse in my stores.
People buy the distros that is *available*. I for one first bought a "combo-distro" from infomagic with debian 1.3 (it said 2.0 on the package
When I recently wanted to buy a newer distro
Then I got a friend of mine to burn out a copy of Debian -- which is my absolute favorite distro.
Point is -- if you don't have a cd-writer, you need to buy what is available. If suse is most widespread in europe -- My guess is that its most available for those without much bandwidth.
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"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Standardisation is necessary for a product to succeed - be that the pedal layout in cars, or the user features and API's in an OS. Uniformity and market share are what perpetuates Microsoft Windows and QWERTY.
Standardisation for the directoy structure.. yes, I think it's needed. But it's beeing worked on afaik. Standardisation of programs? Well. Not necesarily. We need standards formats, not standard programs. It is important that the document produced in my editor imports the right way into your editor.
And remember one thing. Installation and so forth should never be done by non-techies. Neither for windows nor for linux. They try to do it all the time. In windows they do it and fails. In linux they wouldn't come that far.
As long as the techies know what they're doing, we only need standards for "the things people see and use". And, standard 'inwards' in each company, so that the company-network is easily maintainable.. and so forth
*ach. i'll stop ranting, i think you got my meaning*
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"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Linux users are high tech users, and they install ISDN at home in many European countries. The cost of installing and using ISDN is low here in Norway, and in Europe in general. Installing ISDN is difficult on linux in general and especially on RedHat. Make a quick search for ISDN on a dejanews, on the norwegian linux news group (no.it.os.unix.linux.diverse) to get the point. I got 3200 matches on ISDN and 900 on ethernet since jan 1 1999. Now people are recommending Suse when ISDN problems pops up. If RedHat spent a few engineering weeks on ISDN support the RedHat goodwill rice dramatically in my eyes.
RFC1925
Redhat has much to do for the european markets. Our own distros are quite well localized and don't have problems with 8-bit characters etc. which seem to still be problem for Americans. Last time I tried redhat it had some problems with our local characters a and o with dots. That is not acceptable here. Also gnome is quite poorly localized still so KDE is the only choice for desktop if you want it localized.
RedHat could either go and start targetting advertising for people that are already using Linux and try and grab as much of the existing Linux market as they can, or they can try and target advertising towards people that aren't yet using Linux.
Traditionally, RedHat has done both. I've seen RedHat advertising in the Linux Journal as well as in other computer magazines (probably mostly ones aimed at Unix users or programmers, though).
I suspect that RedHat will continue to do both in Europe, too.
At the very least, any attempt to completely only target at potential new Linux users instead of existing Linux users would be suicidal if successful because part of what helps to get new Linux users using a particular distribution is that it's the distribution their long-time Linux using friend (or colleague or random people in a local LUG, whatever) either uses or recommends.
So, of course RedHat moving into Europe will take at least some business from SuSE, in the sense that there are people that might try SuSE and will instead try RedHat.
Hopefully they'll both manage to expand the general Linux market enough, however, that business will continue to expand for both of them.
Standardisation is necessary for a product to succeed - be that the pedal layout in cars, or the user features and API's in an OS. Uniformity and market share are what perpetuates Microsoft Windows and QWERTY.
Right now, Linux needs standardisation to become a more viable mainstream platform, and it needs backing from serious industry players; Red Hat are a driving force in both areas. Whether you see this as good or bad probably depends on the future you'd like to see for Linux.
I just re-installed Star Office, from the new Sun distributed kit. It promised me during the install that it had updated the KDE menus; had I been running SuSE I dare say it probably would have, but it doesn't show up on my RH6 system. The failure is a minor inconvenience to me, but a showstopper to a non-techie.
There will be an inevitable shakeout with the number of Linux distributions (of significance) coming down, and Red Hat is positioned well to be on top at the end of the shakeout. Let's just hope the open source model really works, and that they're not alone.
As I understand it the GPL essentially prevents World Domination in the Linux world in the way MS have done it in the Windows world. It would be pretty much impossible to add undocumented API's or write some software that everyone else depended on to leverage your position in the Linux market.
So since it can't be done in theory, why not try anyway?
Red Hat are a public company. They have an obligation to their shareholders to earn a profit. Good on them for trying.- --------------
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my blog: good times, man, good times
No one makes a big deal of SuSE selling in the U.S., "RedHat turf", so what's the big deal with RedHat selling in Europe, "SuSE turf".
It's no ones turf. I don't see why this a suprise. If it is then wake up.
Snoop
how will this affect Redhat's ability to include things like SSH, or other packages involving strong crypto, in european releases?
they aren't allowed to ship those things outside the US now, right? so now will they be allowed to just send over the source code to the european offices and have _them_ compile the packages, thus circumventing the export controls?
unless i'm really confused, this would be a _very_ interesting test of the "code-is-free-speech" waiver to the export controls. An american country publishing open source software with strong crypto through a branch located outside the US.. hmm
-mcc-baka
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
No--I'm not writing flame bait. I'm stating brutal, legal, fact in U.S. law.
Everybody got all kinds of enthused a few weeks back when Red Hat did an IPO. Yeah, things got kind of funky about who could get pre-IPO shares and so forth, but Red Hat did the right thing and lots of deserving people got in on the bottom floor.
But guess what? Red Hat is now a publicly-traded company. And the directors of a publicly-traded company have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize revenue. Let me re-phrase that in a different way: the directors of a publicly-traded company must always view the interests of their shareholders as being more important than the views of any group--employees, customers, community--anybody.
So it is entirely fair to assume that Red Hat is moving into Europe intent on dominating the European marketplace for Linux. (Note, BTW, that the Red Hat official doesn't say, "for our distro of Linux"--he says, "for Linux.") Red Hat has to fight for market dominance, and defend their marketplace dominance, or else they're going to join the long list of technology companies that get clobbered by shareholder rights suits.
We might all agree that the people at Red Hat are worthy folks. We might all agree that they are noble of heart, and true of purpose. But once they become a publicly-traded company, they have to constantly increase their share value, or their stock will be hammered. And if their stock price is hammered, and a plaintiff can demonstrate that the directors acted on behalf of another group to the detriment of the shareholders, Red Hat can lose a huge chunk of money. In other words, Red Hat cannot act "for the good of the Linux community" if that means that Red Hat revenues--in this quarter--will suffer.
My little company develops large-scale software projects--but we also develop components for database vendors. Two of our clients have been through this process--when you go public, the rules suddenly change. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more whim-of-the-boss perks like Free Pizza Day or flying the staff to Bermuda for lunch. And all of a sudden there is no more visiting back and forth with industry chums, no more collegiality, no more "hey, we're all in this together." Suddenly the view--driven by all those guys in ties that Wall Street required you to hire--is that if we're all in this together, "this" must be a knife fight. (More or less verbatim quote from a finance guy--with really good hair--at a client's.)
Red Hat's going to wipe the floor with SUSE--and SUSE won't know what hit 'em. It's not that Red Hat is Evil--it is simply that Red Hat has moved up to a different league, and in that league that's how the game is played.
If we go beyond the things that probably aren't going to go wrong, we have one fear - that Red Hat may achieve name recognition and brand loyalty elsewhere, as it has in the U.S.
Pardon me if I don't throw a fit about this :-)
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Let's look at an example. I own RedApple, which sells apple piesixs. I make all my apple piesix recipes freely and openly available, on the condition that anyone who sells a modified apple piesix without making a special deal with me has to give the recipe to anyone who buys it.
Of course, apple piesixs ingredients are also all distributed under similar licenses, and anyone with some culinary expertise can put an apple piesix recipe together in a short time. So all that RedApple has over the upstarts a recipe that reflects more time in planning.
And what if a competitor sells cooked piesixs for $2, or offers to squeeze them through extra-wide phone lines straight to your house for free? I've got to make money, don't I? So I offer support and consulting, to help you deploy Official RedApple Apple Piesix in your large dining room. I advertise and raise awareness not only about my brand, but about apple piesixs in general, and put apple piesix on stove tops and tables that used to use RottenNOP.
All this time I continue to give back to the apple piesix community with new and improved recipes, even while some of my competitors are turning profits by including proprietary crusts. Yet because RedApple now has a ticker symbol and an insane market value, I'm now more evil than satan himself.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
No doubt many of us will grab our foreheads in disbelief that Red Hat has chosen to spend its money battling another Linux distro rather than increasing its market presence in the US. But if you take a moment to think about it, you see how much sense it makes.
In the US, Red Hat is the talk du jour, as is Linux itself. The disorganized (or, actually, unwittingly organized) mass media have done a far better job marketing Red Hat Linux in the last few months than any targeted ad campaigns could do.
In Europe, however, SuSe is making the bucks. It's the number one rule of publicly held companies that the stock must go up. That imperative overrides all other converns. It's for this reason that we see companies purchasing their competitors after they have exhausted their slice of the demographic pie. They have to keep growing if they want to survive.
Well, RHAT wants to survive. They can't ride the tide forever, but eventually the journalists will discover some other new fad. Thus they have to send a message to their stockholders that RHAT is a sound, competitive investment. One that will continue to grow its market share and maybe someday (preposterous as it sounds) make a little money.
Thus this maneuver against SuSe. It's the obvious target. The only target, really. They can't pique interest any higher in the US directly, so they're doing it indirectly. And if they happen to gain market share while they're at it, I'm sure they don't mind a bit.
Oh, and if you're worried this will be a bad thing for Linux, don't. RHAT is not big enough yet to be a MSFT, so in the mean time they'll just be one more capitalist company fighting for dominance. And that always brings benefits to users. At least in the short run.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
This expansion is logical and necessary move for Red Hat and they're welcome on the European mainland. Attention to local language support in the software itself and in the helpdesk facilities is still a must over here if RH is to grow.
Suse's dominance is often trumpeted but Red Hat certainly has its share of fans too. I don't think we need anybody to be claiming anything as their turf. Suse can defend itself on technical merit or with marketing just like everyone else. In some ways they appear to be aiming more for the desktop where RH is more of a server thing. It's nice to have a choice. Of course, they both consist of mostly the same software anyhow and can both be made to do most things quite easily.
They could well coexist. Or we could all be switching to Mandrake next. We'll just have to see what happens. Me, I honestly wouldn't mind if everyone would just use one Linux distribution, or at least all the novice users, it would make support and identifying and getting rid of common problems easier for sure. Choice is good, chaos can be disruptive.
Now everybody moderate this into oblivion, okay? ;-0
- robin
Turbo Linux started as a fork of the Red Hat distribution, much as Mandrake and so many others have done since. In other words, Red Hat do not 'assimilate' like the Borg, they *disseminate* to any and all who want to make use of their work.
Those who would promote their preferred distribution by ineptly riduculing another do a disservice to both.
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John 3:16 - God's Public License
Well of course RedHat is expanding into Europe. This is something Bob Young explicity said he wanted to do with the IPO bucks: expand into the international market.
Frankly, this just makes sense. Linux has had a strong history of being an international effort. Linus, Alan Cox, etc etc etc. There's lots of users in Europe (and lots in Japan too, I might add.) Look for Redhat to expand there in the coming months.
So what does this mean for RedHat? Look for an increased prescence in Europe (read: ads, offices, new hires), as well as increased international features in the distribution. Support packages worldwide will also be stepped up and enhanced if RedHat is sensible. Their current support model is terrible, IMO. Perhaps moving to new markets will lead them to streamline and refine it.
What does it mean for Linux? Obviously, more users, and thus more bugs get fixed, more apps get written, and the usual benefits of increased market share will result. Increased acceptance in Europe can only be good for Linux on the whole.
In short, I applaud RedHat for moving forward. This is what commercialization of Linux is good for: moving things forward in ways the community alone cannot, or not at least not rapidly enough. The next few months will be exciting indeed.