Both companies are so screwed right now. Their markets are being eroded by low-cost or free alternatives and the reasons for customers
to pay a premium for their name are dwindling. Both wanted to be the next
Microsoft and dominate their market. It's a close race to the
bottom, but I think Red Hat will fold first. Sun's still got a damn lot of
cash in the bank and barring a massive coke-binder from the CEO, Red Hat will
continue to eat through their smaller pile of cash faster while more customers
migrate to Suse (for the people who like to pay money) and Debian/Other linux.
Whadda you think?
UPDATE: Well, gosh. Look who just sorted weighed in on this issue.
Robert X. Cringely.
who folds first?
kjones4 on 2004-12-08T20:08:08
I doubt you'll see Redhat or Sun folding in the near future. However, the cheapest Redhat enterprise seems over-priced to me. It is $350 for ES and you have to continue to pay for access to updates every year. Contrast that with what Sun will be doing with Solaris 10, which looks like a much better deal. Microsoft's lowest price is about $375 for the web edition and it includes free updates for many years. The web edition is limited in that it can't be a DC, but for a web server platform, it's a good deal.
Hm
pudge on 2004-12-08T21:28:04
I didn't know either company was still around.
;-)
RH is a company?
hfb on 2004-12-09T05:13:11
Well, if it's any sign of soundness, when someone tells you that the new box the cpan mothership will be running on will likely be solaris because the clustering software is ~300 euro as compared to the 2000 or so for the RH analogue.....RH can't die fast enough as far as I'm concerned. Pity that the BSDs never got their act together.
