ITinfo: Networking Vendors Miss The Mark With Linux

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Networking Vendors Miss The Mark With Linux
by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Display vendors at NetWorld Interop offered a few off-hand comments regarding their product's support (or lack thereof) for Linux, the darling of the high-tech community.

"To add this operating system along with the ones we already support, I'd need a lot of users banging on my door," said Christopher Cook, product manager for Optivity NETarchitect at Nortel Networks Corp.

Cook's comments come after he admits that's he's receiving "more and more" requests for Linux support.

"We don't support Linux now, nor do we plan to support it," said Mark Emmerson, product manager for Enterprise Network Management at Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif.

"[Linux is] a 'techie' technology right now," said Cam Cullen, product marketing manager of large enterprise served marketing at 3Com Corp, Santa Clara, Calif. "When the big applications vendors say they'll support it, then we'll support it. And believe me, we're tracking what they do."

I can't believe these vendors would make such comments. It's much like Bill Gate's oft-quoted comment that "640k should be enough for anyone." I'll bet these guys will be eating their words while they watch the Linux world pass them by.

I just upgraded one of ITrain's corporate servers to Red Hat Linux 6.0. It took a reboot, a 1/2-hour install, and another quick reboot. Over a gigabyte of system files upgraded and we're running our databases faster than ever. Now I dare you to tell me that you can upgrade NT and all it's supporting apps in 30 minutes or less (and with absolutely no changes required at any of our workstations or server console).

And, what I think was most telling: I bought the absolutely last copy of Red Hat Linux 6.0 on the shelf at 5:30p.m., this Monday - the day the product was released. Even before the end of the day, the big box software retailers were sold out. And our offices are in bucolic Columbia, Maryland. We may be the heart of the east coast technology corridor, but we're by no means an urban metropolis. Even Microsoft's Windows 95 and 98 left unsold boxes on the shelf when they were first released.

If you're new to Linux, get with it. This is the operating system you'll run on your next file and print server, and in a year or two, you'll have an alternative for your desktop operating system, too.

What do you think? Leave your comments on the message center.

Red Hat

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updated May 13, 1999
http://dgl.com/itinfo/1999/it990513.html