When Oracle held its annual OpenWorld user conference in San Francisco last month, CEO Larry Ellison grabbed the spotlight with a game-changing announcement about his company's support for Linux. On the sidelines, however, the software giant quietly unveiled new application offerings that could have a greater impact on medium-sized companies and System i users.
In a move that shows he can still turn the IT industry on its ear, Ellison announced that Oracle will now support its own distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) known as Unbreakable Linux. Moreover, the vendor will provide that support to both Oracle and non-Oracle customers at prices that are half those that Red Hat charges. To create Unbreakable Linux, Oracle will take the RHEL source code (something it can do under open-source licensing), remove the Red Hat trademarks, and add its own bug fixes. It should be noted that Oracle has been fixing bugs in Linux for years and offering the fixes to the open-source community, so it has solid experience in this area.
While Oracle does not have equal experience in supporting a Linux release, it has worked closely with Red Hat to support customers that run Oracle products on RHEL. That cooperation will continue, though there will undoubtedly be a significant degree of tension in the relationship from this point onward.
Oracle will offer binaries and source code for Unbreakable Linux from its Web site at no charge. Users can access the Web-based support network and download software updates for an annual fee of $99. If they need telephone support as well, they can subscribe to a basic support offering that costs $399 for a one- to two-processor server and $999 for larger systems. Premier support, which costs $1,199 for a one- to two-way server and $1,999 for bigger boxes, adds the "back porting" of Oracle's bug fixes to earlier releases of RHEL 3 and 4. Back porting, which is not available from Red Hat, could enable companies to stay on older Linux releases instead of enduring costly and risky upgrades. It should be noted, however, that Oracle is supporting Unbreakable Linux only on Intel-compatible x86 and x86-64 servers at this time. That leaves out companies that run Linux on POWER servers such as the System i or on Intel's Itanium servers.
While some open-source advocates are decrying Oracle's announcement as an attempt to "fork" the Linux code, there is little evidence that this is what the vendor is trying to do. The company has stressed that whenever Red Hat issues a new RHEL release, it will create a new release of Unbreakable Linux that is based on the new RHEL code, albeit with its own fixes. Oracle has also pledged to continue to contribute new code and fixes to the open-source community, though it is not clear whether it will contribute all of the fixes that it applies to Unbreakable Linux.
If Oracle is not out to fork Linux, what is the company trying to do? As I see it, the software giant's main motive is to blunt the competitive threats that it faces from Microsoft, Red Hat, and (to a lesser extent) Novell. Taken together, these three vendors dominate the market for operating systems running on commodity servers. They are using this domination to expand their control over the software stacks that run on these servers. Each vendor offers database and middleware products that compete directly with Oracle products. Moreover, each vendor can configure and package its operating system in ways that encourage customers to buy the rest of their respective stacks.
By offering Unbreakable Linux, Oracle gives users of its products a good reason to get their Linux distributions from it rather than Red Hat or Novell. By providing fixes for older RHEL releases, it also delivers a level of support that customers expect when they are running Windows Server releases. That, in turn, could convince some users of Oracle products running on Windows to switch to Unbreakable Linux. In short, Unbreakable Linux increases Oracle's control over customers by removing the influence that its rivals can exercise through their operating systems. There is nothing wrong with Oracle seeking that control; after all, control of the software stack is something that all of the platform vendors are trying to gain.
That said, I do not expect Unbreakable Linux to make significant inroads at companies other than those that are running Oracle products on other Linux-on-Intel distributions. Such firms should seriously consider using Oracle's distribution, as the vendor will undoubtedly make its products run well on the new offering. However, companies should think twice before running non-Oracle middleware and applications on Unbreakable Linux. While the vast majority of these products will run perfectly well on the distribution, some vendors may be unwilling to certify their products on it. The best course of action is to consult with your vendors before proceeding.
Oracle Accelerate Puts Mid-Market in the Fast Lane
In the midst of all the hullabaloo over the new Linux offering, the 41,000 attendees at OpenWorld overlooked the equally important unveiling of a new product line known as Oracle Accelerate. Admittedly, Oracle downplayed the announcement to the point that few could have recognized its significance. Despite its less-than-stellar debut, Accelerate is the sleeper offering that could be marching at the front of Oracle's product parade next year.
Oracle Accelerate is an initiative to create preconfigured, aggressively priced packages of Oracle applications for 20 industries and their subindustries. The packages will include documentation on industry business processes as well as licenses to the products that Oracle recommends for supporting those processes. Each package will also come with Accelerators, powerful tools for configuring Oracle's applications to support each user's business processes. Customers will also receive information about software and services from Oracle's partners that complement the Accelerate packages. Many of the packages will include Oracle JD Edwards applications that run on the System i.
While the new offerings should be attractive to mid-market companies, their significance extends beyond their immediate appeal. Through the offerings, Oracle will provide its customers with clear guidelines to which products they should choose from the vendor's broad portfolio of applications. Such guidance is something that Oracle's customers sorely need in the wake of the company's acquisition of more than 20 software vendors over the last several years.
In addition, Oracle Accelerate could help the vendor build a stronger ecosystem of business partners around its industry applications. This is something that Oracle must do to compete effectively with its archrival SAP, a solution provider that has developed deep partner ecosystems around the vertical industries it supports. While Oracle has many partners that specialize in vertical industries, it has not organized them to the same degree that SAP has organized its partners. Oracle Accelerate could provide the focal point for the ecosystem-building that the vendor needs.
It should be noted that most of the Oracle Accelerate packages will not ship until the first half of next year. It will be no small task for Oracle to create preconfigured application packages for dozens of industries and subindustries. I can tell you, however, that key people inside Oracle have made significant progress in deciding which applications will come into play in each industry. Based on what I have learned from them, I see significant potential in the offerings that they will bring to market in the coming months.
Speaking of potential, one of the key thoughts that I am taking away from OpenWorld is that Oracle's potential as a vendor of complete software stacks is on the rise. By extending its reach down to the operating system at the bottom of the stack and out to vertical industry applications at the top, the vendor is close to becoming a one-stop shop for most of the software its customers need. To bring those customers into the store, however, Oracle will need to create a clear roadmap for its diverse product lines. If Oracle sticks to its strategy, I anticipate seeing and writing about such a roadmap in the coming year, so stay tuned.
Breaking News!
As this article was going to press, Microsoft and Novell announced an agreement under which the vendors will collaborate to improve interoperability between Microsoft's Windows and Novell's SUSE Linux operating systems. The two companies will also provide customers with patent coverage for their respective products until at least 2012. While the agreement will face criticism from open-source purists, it will likely be welcomed by the thousands of companies that run mixed Windows-Linux environments. As a result, Novell could become a stronger competitor to Red Hat and, by extension, to Oracle. Look for further analyses of the Microsoft-Novell announcement in future issues of eServer Insight.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
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