Open Source Weblog

The capture of Yahoo as a Linux support customer is a significant win, of course, but without any real detail it is hard to judge how well the program has done.

"We've already signed a number of support contracts, some for over half a million dollars, and Oracle has replaced Red Hat at Yahoo and numerous other customer sites as their Linux support supplier," Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said.

As my colleague Kevin Murphy noted: "Yahoo is the first major named customer to sign up to Oracle's offer. It's not clear how big a deal it is, whether or not it is company-wide, or whether it is one of the half-million-dollar contracts Ellison mentioned."

Without that sort of detail, it's best to reserve judgement.

UPDATE
As Swahbuckler points out in the comments below, Yahoo was in from the start, so you can question whether it counts as a new customer win. Meanwhile, Stephen Shankland has got a statement from Yahoo's vice president of engineering, Laurie Mann, which makes it clear that the company has far from replaced Red Hat with Oracle.

"Our current infrastructure leverages both Red Hat and Oracle Linux products," he stated.

The jury is still very much out.