Red Hat Profits, MS gets Linux Support Customers

Recent articles in ZDNet and other trade publications have made note of three large companies now seeking support contracts under the partnership between Novell and MS. This should definitely prove interesting as thus far the immediate impact of this new business alliance has not been felt at Red Hat.

With Red Hat shares gaining considerably in year to year growth it looks like the support model they are offering is working, so far at least. Though I have been a Red Hat user for a very long time, even i agree that RHEL is less accessible to the average user. (Don't get me wrong CentOS does a good job). For me having at least one "commercial" flavor of Linux is a job requirement. I do however feel that the up and coming Linux admins of the world will be influence by their "first taste" of a distro. I still know admins today that will never leave the worlds of Slackware or FreeBSD because that's where they cut their teeth.

Do I think the new competitors to RH in the support market will make an impact? Yes, will it be as strong as they hope? We'll have to see. One thing that sets the 'support' model differences is the caliber of folks. It's easy to lump a bunch of low-paid IT folks into a room w/phones and call it a support center, but to actually keep and retain those highly skilled workers who are willing to do technical support? that's another issue entirely.