25th October 2006, Oracle announced same enterprise class support for Linux as for its database. They received huge positive response from the Linux community and they promised to keep a close watch on the compatibility issues.
“We think it’s important not to fragment the market,” said Oracle’s Chief Corporate Architect Edward Screven. “We will maintain compatibility with Red Hat Linux. Every time Red Hat distributes a new version we will resynchronize with their code. All we add are bug fixes, which are immediately available to Red Hat and the rest of the community. We have years of Linux engineering experience. Several Oracle employees are Linux mainline maintainers.”
IBM at that time also welcomed oracle’s move. “Oracle’s support for Red Hat Linux will encourage broader adoption of Linux in the enterprise,” said Bill Zeitler, Senior Vice President & Group Executive, IBM Systems and Technology Group. “IBM shares Oracle’s goal of making Linux a reliable, highly standard, cost effective platform for mission critical applications backed by world class support.”
But now IBM is not ready to guarantee that its computer programs are compatible with Oracle Corp.’s recently launched version of the Linux operating system, an IBM spokesman said on Friday. This means that if IBM software programs turn out to be incompatible with Oracle Enterprise Linux, then it will be up to Oracle — and not IBM — to resolve the issue, said IBM spokesman Matthew McMahon.
Oracle, which started selling Linux in October, has said its product is identical to one from Red Hat Inc. the No. 1 vendor of the popular open-source operating system, and will seamlessly run software written for the Red Hat system. But users need outside critics to support the move for oracle to win over this field. Once a giant like IBM starts supporting oracle, then there would be no one stopping them.
“What Red Hat is selling to the customer is peace of mind. Oracle cannot do that because it is unable to certify comparability,” said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research.
With February coming to an end, Oracle is eagerly waiting for outside support to be somewhere around the leaders in the real race. Time will do the judgment.
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Text Source: Reuters
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