为什么红帽不把CentOS当作竞争对手？

(2009-12-09 09:41:47)

标签：

linux

centos

rhel

红帽

it

我们就有听到消息，CentOS也已经得到硬件厂商OpenLogic的商业支持了，这对CentOS来说，是个不小的进步，作为社区发行版来说，这是个不小的进步。但是我就不明白了，为什么红帽对此无动于衷，他们为什么不想把这部分CentOS用户转为RHEL的付费用户呢？

今天我从红帽的全球支持副总裁那里得到了一点提示，我们对CentOS用户不会刻意追求，我们寻求的是真正心甘情愿买我们服务的RHEL用户，他们能够真正理解红帽订阅模式和支持服务的，这些用户以前可能只是使用免费的开源社区版本。

我个人也在近期的红帽的各种场合的演讲中获得一点有趣的信息，比如最近的红帽财季投资者会议上，他们的CEO和CFO都有提到，那就是红帽追求的那些真正理解他们服务和商业模式的非付费买家，这是他们整个销售战略的重点。

红帽对CentOS获得商业硬件厂商的支持并不感到压力巨大，因为他们认为，红帽的订阅服务并不仅仅包括各种硬件的认证，而且还有大量的发行版周期内的软件安全升级和补丁包升级，这个可能是CentOS和其他大量的社区版本Linux所不能做到的。

Why Red Hat doesn't see CentOS as a Linux rival

I wrote a story yesterday about CentOS (the Red Hat Enterprise

Linux clone) getting commercial support from OpenLogic. One thing

that isn't in the posted story, that I've always been curious

about, is why Red Hat itself doesn't go after CentOS users in an

effort to convert them to paid Red Hat support.

Today, I got an answer on that question from Red Hat's Marco

Bill-Peter, vp Global Support Services.

"We are not actively chasing

users of CentOS, but rather find that enterprises are naturally

turning to Red Hat for the value of the Red Hat subscription model

and support," Bill-Peter said.

I personally find that a little 'interesting' especially in light

of the comments made by Red Hat's CEO and CFO during recent

quarterly investor conference calls. As an overall sales strategy,

Red Hat is pursuing the free-to-paid

opportunity. During Red Hat's third quarter fiscal 2009 conference call CEO Jim

Whitehurst said that one of the top 25 deals closed by Red Hat

during the quarter was one where the user moved from a Free version

of Linux to a paid Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription.

Whitehurst pegged the deal at "6 figures" for a single year.

There are of course plenty of other free Linux distribution beyond

just CentOS (like Fedora for example), but seeing as CentOS is

basically Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I had thought that would be an

easy upsell.

But I'm wrong, in that there are some key differences between

CentOS and what Red Hat provides with its Red Hat Enterprise Linux

subscriptions. That's the key reason why Red Hat doesn't

particularly see OpenLogic's support of CentOS as being a new

rival.

"Truly supporting Red Hat

Enterprise Linux is not only about support services, but also about

the value of the entire Red Hat subscription," Bill-Peter told me.

"With distributions like CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux's

valuable certifications do not transfer, and without owning the

distribution, third parties cannot fully support it through

important activities such as the timely release of patches."

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