Red Hat Targets Unix Customers With Linux OS

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A couple of months after a demonstration at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York City, Red Hat Inc. made
good on its promise to deliver a powerful Linux operating system for business use.

The Raleigh, N.C. open source software maker rolled out its Red Hat Linux Advanced Server, and is back in the Big Apple Tuesday to unveil enterprise application support for the product at a launch event. On hand to show their software support for Red Hat’s new OS are Intel Corp., Oracle and VERITAS Software.

Red Hat Linux Advanced Server products are geared to get large firms to migrate from UNIX products to Linux applications — a tall task when Unix has remained a trustworthy brand for so long. However, Red Hat claims its OS and corresponding applications reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and yield greater return-on-investment (ROI) — both key buzz phrases for enterprises these days — and aims to back up its strong talk with research conduced by IDC comparing Linux to Unix. Among the findings in the market research firm’s studies are that Linux reduces per-user costs by almost half in environments when compared to RISC/UNIX solutions.

“The low-cost/high-value proposition of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server on Intel architecture delivers to IT buyers high performance without the lock-in and inflated costs of proprietary operating systems,” said Paul Cormier, executive vice president of research and development with Red Hat. “We’ve designed the new Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to provide software vendors with all the tools and capabilities they need to rapidly migrate their applications to an enterprise-class Linux environment.”

Each unit of Red Hat Linux Advanced Server will include a one-year subscription to the Red Hat Network, which entitles users to managed services, secure configuration, asset management and maintenance through a single interface.

The Linux Advanced Server and services will be available in April, with pricing beginning at $800 per server and up, based on the level of services provided.