Redwood Shoes, California-based Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux program was launched at the end of October and sees the company providing cut-price support for Red Hat Inc’s Enterprise Linux as well as its own bug fixes and updates.
Despite the fanfare surrounding the program’s launch, Oracle had not named any customers for the program until earlier this month when chief executive Larry Ellison claimed that it had replaced Red Hat as Yahoo’s Linux support provider. That claim turned out to be an exaggeration, as Yahoo’s vice president of engineering Laurie Mann clarified that the company is using both Oracle and Red Hat for Linux support.
Yahoo is one of the 26 Unbreakable Linux customers announced by Oracle this week, although it remains to be seen how many have moved from Red Hat to Oracle, as opposed to adopting its support alongside that of other Linux support providers.
Ten of the 26 have gone on the record to outline the details of their adoption, including IHOP, Timex, Diebold, Yahoo, GlobeCast, ABC Stores, Stuart Maue, Replacements, Mutual Materials, and Hays Medical Center.
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, in a statement, suggesting that the restaurant chain has gone the furthest in moving away from Red Hat.
Meanwhile, the statement from said Archana Deskus, CIO at Timex, suggested that the watch manufacturer has standardized on one Linux support vendor, at least for its Oracle deployments:
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, he said.
For the record, the other 16 customers named but not quoted by Oracle include: BNP Paribas, Raley’s, Powell Industries, Columbia Forest Products, Deseret Power, Fulcrum Analytics, and the New York State Insurance Department,
Completing the list are 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.
