Red Hat Enterprise Linux: Generating Partner Revenue

A major operating system release sends many ripples through the associated ecosystem. In the case of RHEL 6.0, big vendors like HP see potential profit. Paul Rubens discusses the issue.

And so it is with enterprise server operating systems. Last week’s release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.0 generated much excitement from its loyal customers. Many of Red Hat’s partners are hoping the release will provide them with an opportunity to make a great deal of money off the back of it, too. Although the RHEL 6.0 server OS includes numerous significant new features — a new hybrid 2.6.32 kernel; support for more cores and memory; better reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) capabilities; the ext4 file system by default; and so more — it was hard to discern that from the clamor of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) hardware partners preparing to make money by selling more of their lovely server boxes and associated services.

HP for one certainly sees RHEL 6.0 as an opportunity to boost its sales, both to existing customers and to “UNIX defectors” — companies looking to ditch their existing UNIX setups and move to open source software.

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