The Feature

Thoughts on Unbreakable Linux

October 30, 2006 on 6:31 am | by Floyd Teter | In Worth Noting | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

Oracle OpenWorld 2006 is all wrapped up. While the laser lights, hip-hop dancers, Elton John, and lunch under the big top were all noteworthy elements of the conference, most of the buzz from OpenWorld surrounds the announcement of Unbreakable Linux.

Just to update those of you who were too wrapped up in watching the World Series thrashing of the Tigers by the world champion St. Louis Cardinals to notice anything else, Oracle announced an offering of enterprise-level support for the Red Hat Linux operating system (minus the Red Hat branding) for about half the price of Red Hat’s current support offerings. It’s a pretty creative way for Oracle to finally execute its long-rumored entry into the Linux OS space: rather than build their own distribution, they’ll compete for support of the leading distro (and support is where the money is in the current Linux OS business model for most providers). Oracle has branded this offering as “Unbreakable Linux”.

After Larry Ellison made the announcement, replete with armor-clad penguin logos, Red Hat’s stock dropped by 25% in overnight trading. The buzz on the street is that, once Red Hat’s stock drops to a bargain price, Oracle will acquire the company and thus be able to offer an Oracle OS. Although I’m not privy to Larry’s strategic plans, the idea seems plausible. If so, there may also be another long-term Oracle target in play. Let’s talk about Sun.

Part of Sun’s plan to regain its former glory (and stock price) was to tout Solaris on x86, differentiating Solaris from Linux by contending that the companies offering and supporting Linux are too young to be trustworthy for support of enterprise-critical operations. As of Oracle’s announcement, that reasoning is toast. In fact, doesn’t Unbreakable Linux make Oracle and Sun competitors for the enterprise OS? So to those still holding Sun stock hoping for a rally: My grandmother held onto her Confederate dollars until her dying day, insisting the South would rise again…I felt bad for her too. Sun stock has been cheap for quite some time, and now it’s likely going to stay that way, which makes it a great acquisition target for somebody who understands the business and has the financial chops to make the purchase.

So let’s really go out on the speculation limb. Consider a scenario where Oracle eventually acquires both Red Hat and Sun. Oracle can then offer a full stack of products, including Oracle Linux (Red Hat Linux with the best features of Solaris) on Sun…uh, I mean Oracle…hardware (not just servers but storage arrays too!), all optimized for Oracle’s database, middleware, and applications products. As an additional plus, guess who would be the new custodian of Java as a result of acquiring Sun?

Now keep in mind that I’m just speculating and having fun with recent developments. I have no secret information, inside track, or scoop. And acquiring both Red Hat and Sun does seem like quite a bit for Oracle to digest. Then again, I never thought they would successfully absorb PeopleSoft…

LATE NOTE: Neil McAllister has also written a strong article on this scenario that popped up at InfoWorld a few hours after I posted this piece. No collaboration here – just two minds thinking alike. You can read Neil’s article here.