Red Hat Ships Oracle-Tuned E-Commerce Platform

Linux vendor Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq: RHAT) has announced the availability of a new version of its Linux OS designed to power online business operations that are working with the Oracle8i database.

Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition for Oracle8i, created in collaboration with Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), is part of Red Hat’s line of enterprise edition Linux OS packages that have been optimized to support high-volume e-commerce and enterprise applications.

The new Red Hat Linux package, which includes technical support and an annual maintenance subscription, offers users a number of memory enhancements, such as physical RAM increase and direct disk access support. The new package also features integrated Java Run-time Environment (JRE) and Motif 2.1 support.

Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition for Oracle8i will be available in April 2000 through value-added distribution channels and Red Hat’s e-commerce and information site.

Other Private Label Red Hat Distros

In January 2000, Red Hat Linux began shipping a Linux package fine-tuned for Compaq Alpha Systems, developed in collaboration with Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE: CPQ). The Compaq package was created as part of an extended strategic alliance between the two firms, announced in the fall of 1999, which also featured a partnership on enterprise-level user support.

Red Hat has subsequently released enterprise edition Linux packages designed to work with for Computer Associates’ systems and storage management solutions and SAP R/3 to help drive Linux-based solutions further into the corporate market space.

The current updates to Red Hat’s Linux distribution will be made freely available to the open-source software community under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

IDC and the Penguin’s Numbers

“IT managers are interested in the many strengths open-source software offers, but have some concerns about applications, tools, middleware, serverware and support,” commented Dan Kusnetzky, program director, operating environments and serverware for International Data Corp. (IDC).

Kusnetzky additionally commented that “the Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition product line has the potential of reducing some of these concerns and is likely to accelerate the adoption of Linux.”

According to IDC research, Linux has grabbed the number two spot in world OS sales behind Windows NT, with 5.4 million copies sold in 1999. Previously, Linux-based platforms were the fastest-growing server operating environment in 1998, growing more than 190 percent and capturing more than 15.8 percent of the server operating environment market.

The Oracle of Linux

In February 2000, the database titan announced its intention to ship the Oracle8i Release 2 for Linux. The new release was designed to incorporate several new capabilities designed for e-commerce, including built-in analytical functions for data warehousing, Java 2 and XML support, as well as data protection to secure information in-storage and in-transit.

Oracle also made its e-commerce-enabling Dot-Com Suite for Linux available earlier this year. The product includes versions of Oracle8i, the Oracle Application Server and Oracle WebDB for portal development, created to run on the open-source OS.