Red Hat's Linux Strategy: expanding the Linux footprint

Abstract

Red Hat has been the most successful Linux provider to date, with more than 2.5 million subscriptions sold by the end of 2008. It intends to build on this success with a continuing focus on the price performance of Linux.

Table of Contents

• Executive summary
• The Ovum view
• SWOT analysis
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Opportunities
• Threats
• Linux automation
• Deployment: certify once, deploy anywhere
• Management: less developed but as important
• Expanded support
• A seven-year support lifecycle
• To ten years
• Extended update support
• Building on Fedora' s shoulders
• A good relationship is key
• Server strategy
• Nothing new apart from packaging
• RHEL AP package
• Boosting revenues by getting customers to move from RHEL standard to AP
• Partly successful
• Less vocal on storage than it used to be
• RHEL MRG package
• On top of RHEL standard or AP
• Realtime kernel for predictability
• Grid to leverage spare compute capacity
• Messaging for high throughput computing
• A challenging mix to market
• The Red Hat HPC Solution package
• HTC versus HPC
• Red Hat HPC Solution: turnkey HPC with third-party technology
• RHEL for HPC Compute Nodes for DIY enthusiasts (and service providers)
• Desktop strategy
• More focus towards virtualisation as well as Windows
• Renewed interest
• From ' playing to the gallery' (2007) to the Qumranet acquisition (2008)
• RHEL Desktop
• Red Hat Global Desktop (RHGD)
• Thin clients
• Virtualised clients
• Entering the nascent, fiercely contested virtual desktop market
• Solid Ice/Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager technology
• User experience, desktop density and price as key differentiators
• Windows support - RHEL Desktop has to catch up
• Expanding beyond Qumranet
• To the cloud