On Thursday 02 Oct 2003 4:05 pm, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
Quoting David Holden <dh(a)iucr.org>:
> All of the above makes sense but leaves the question if redhat only
> wants the niche market of higher margin enterprise customers what
> fils the gap for the rest, currently its largely microsoft...
Er, I have to disagree because I think you're making some assumptions that
are incorrect.
You see, Microsoft's "shrink wrapped" products _are_ (and _always_ have
been) currently defnined by its enterprise customers, and large volume
sales. The fact that they also sell on the retail shelves is just to
further that volume even more. But the small volume consumers have
_no_say_ in the product's design, simply because they are not worth
Microsoft's bother from a financial perspective.
Red Hat is basically moving to this same model with a twist. Like
Microsoft, it let's its "shrink wrapped" products be defined by its
enterprise customers, because it's not worth it to spend money to
accomodate the small guy. But unlike Microsoft, they give the community
basically everything in their "shrink wrapped" products. That way the
smaller volume community has a way to define its products into what _they_
want as well.
I think Red Hat has got the "best of both worlds" down from a business and
consumer standpoint.
I agree about letting the "shrink wrapped" product be defined by the
enterprise customer, but it seems to me that Redhat will not have a "skrink
wrapped product" for the small business because they are not going to provide
a "stable" low priced product with security updates for the small business.
When fedora is release will I beable to say to my boss, yes we can install
fedora version "x" and be able to rely on redhat providing security updates
for the next 2-3 years for that version, or will have have to say to my boss
if you want a stable OS for 2-3year you will have to cough up $345 for
system/per year.
As far as I know for version of Microsoft OS's your guaranteed >3 years use of
that OS and security updates are *free*.
(Yes I know microsoft and security are words that really don't mix :))
Dave.
--
Dr. David Holden. (Systems Developer)
Crystallography Journals Online: <
http://journals.iucr.org>
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