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Open Source Blog
Sun disguises price-hike as Red Hat discount
January 18, 2007
I was somewhat surprised this week to see a number of stories about Sun under-cutting Red Hat with its new pricing for Solaris. Not because it isn’t an interesting story, but because my colleague Tim Prickett-Morgan, who wouldn’t miss a trick, hadn’t reported that angle at all.
What was going on here? Had we missed the news? Had we got our facts wrong?
Far from it. While it is undeniable that Solaris support is cheaper than that of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ("about half that of equivalent offerings from Red Hat", according to Sun, the fact is Sun has actually *increased* the price it is charging to support Solaris.
“Those support services, by the way, have been repriced compared to the pricing Sun announced at its Solaris 10 announcement almost two years ago. Back then, basic patch support cost $120 per CPU socket per year, with 9x5 business support costing $240 per socket per year and 24x7 support costing $360 per socket per year.
“Under the new Solaris support pricing, Sun is offering five different plans, and these support contracts are based at the system level and they are more expensive.”
As can be seen from Sun’s price list the basic service now starts at $240 per year for 1/2 sockets. 12x5 business support costs $720 per year for 1/2 sockets and $1,380 for three sockets or more, and 24x7 support is $1,080 per year for 1/2 sockets and $1,980 per year for three sockets or more.
These prices are undeniably cheaper than Red Hat’s list prices but the savings aren’t as good as they used to be.
Admittedly you get more with Sun’s latest update than you did with previous versions, and the midrange subscription has better support terms, but that’s not the point. Sun hasn’t suddenly under-cut Red Hat – it was always under-cutting Red Hat, and it used to do it a whole lot more.
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