Re: Product cycles too short for small businesses (esp. Red Hat)

David,

Thanks for your thoughts on this.  What my SMALL company would need is the 
Enterprise Server Standard Edition at $799, plus whatever the annual 
ongoing fee would be.

Sure, $799 is less than the daily lunch cost in the corporate dining room 
for some companies, but at my small company, $799 is real money.

No, I am *not* asking for *free* updates forever.  What I am asking for is 
assured availability of updates and security fixes for more than 12-18 
months.

When RH comes out with a new version that I install, we go ahead and buy 
the  "box"; I don't try to download it for free.  We DO pay the annual fee 
for up2date (which only works some of the time for us).  We are willing to pay.

In my view, the problem is that a small company like my 5-person company 
can't afford the same price as a Fortune 500 company.

David, the point is that this *is* an annoyance -- that is what this list 
is about -- and that the annoyance is that the linux "packagers" are 
forgetting about, misunderstanding, or ignoring the economic limitations of 
the smaller business customers.

Also, the short product cycle without security updates after a short amount 
of time will create ongoing security problems for the whole 
industry. Anybody who can't afford to buy the more costly products or who 
can't afford the (large amount of) time required to constantly install new 
versions of the free products will be without security fixes after a couple 
of years.  Those machines will then become targets for attacks that could 
(like Windows machines) turn them into zombies that will be use for DoS 
attacks on the 'net.

Jay

David Vehrs wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 09:09:40PM -0400, Jay Smith wrote:
> 
>>Red Hat's recent change in their product release cycle strategy has major 
>>negative implications for a small business such as mine.
> 
> <snip> 
> 
>>1) Inexpensive/free product but with short product cycles. This is where 
>>all the new stuff would be available, etc.  However, within a year or two 
>>they would no longer be supported, including security fixes would not be 
>>offered.  The intended user is the casual desktop user, hobbiest, geek, 
>>guru, etc., etc.; either those who don't use it hard or use it very hard 
>>and want the latest.
>>2) Costly product with very long product cycles.  Little or no 
>>enhancement; it is pretty much locked down. However, security updates and 
>>the like would be available for a long time.  The intended user is the 
>>corporate enterprise running big databases (i.e. Oracle and the like).
> 
> 
> Which Redhat product are you talking about?
> 
>               Advanced Server (Premium Edition)         - $2499
>               Advanced Server (Standard Edition)        - $1499
>               Enterprise Server (Standard Edition)      - $799
>               Enterprise Server (Basic Edition)         - $349
>               Enterprise Workstation (Standard Edition) - $299
>               Enterprise Workstation (Basic Edition)    - $179
> 
> ALL six versions come with a one year of subscription to the Redhat Network, 
> but can be extended.  And I don't know about you but for Corporate support accounts those seem like very reasonable costs to me. 
> 
> What you want is for Redhat to provide an UPDATE SERVICE to you for their most inexpensive products for an UNLIMITED time period (well until you decide to upgrade)??
> 
> If Redhat were to do this, they would quickly be out of business.  Redhat is currently one of the larger consumers of bandwidth in the Eastern US from all the downloads (mostly free versions), and Redhat returns all their code to GPL projects.  With all they give do you really think you can ask for more?
> 
> I think someone is a little spoiled.
> 
> Dave V.
> 

-- 
Jay Smith

e-mail: Jay-BB6z0fKkvBxWk0Htik3J/[email protected]  mailto:[email protected]
website: http://www.JaySmith.com

Jay Smith & Associates
P.O. Box 650
Snow Camp, NC  27349  USA

Phone: Int+US+336-376-9991
Toll-Free Phone in US & Canada:
	1-800-447-8267
Fax: Int+US+336-376-6750