Open Source Weblog

According to Oracle, the list includes Yahoo!, IHOP, Timex, Diebold, GlobeCast, ABC Stores, Stuart Maue, Replacements, Ltd., Mutual Materials and Hays Medical Center, BNP Paribas, Raley's, Powell Industries, Columbia Forest Products, Deseret Power, Fulcrum Analytics, New York State Insurance Department, The Cobalt Group, Stemilt Growers, The Gem Group, Stanford University, Vcommerce, Knife River Corporation, Primavera Systems, Centre de Services Partages du Quebec, and Spaulding Equipment Company.

It remains unclear what price these customers are paying for their Linux support, or whether Oracle has displaced or been adopted alongside Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux support.

Earlier this month, Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison, claimed the company had “replaced Red Hat at Yahoo,” a claim swiftly denied by the online media firm.

"We will continue to evaluate and use the most appropriate vendors depending on our needs and their expertise. Our current infrastructure leverages both Red Hat and Oracle products," said Yahoo vice president of engineering Laurie Mann said in a statement.

As well as naming names, Oracle has also managed to encourage 10 of the customers to go on the record, describing their deployments. A couple of these suggest (and I use that word deliberately) that Oracle has indeed replaced Red Hat.

"Oracle provides the responsive support we need to deploy and maintain Linux-based solutions, and the switch from Red Hat support couldn't have been easier," said Patrick Piccininno, CIO, IHOP.

"With the Oracle Unbreakable Linux offering, we are now able to rely on one partner to meet the Linux and Oracle support requirements, greatly increasing our efficiency and reducing our costs," said Archana Deskus, CIO, Timex.

It is still early days for Unbreakable Linux and while the list of names is impressive, the lack of detail leaves room for misconception. As more details emerge on the deployments and any potential impact on Red Hat, we’ll be better positioned to assess the success of Unbreakable Linux.