[Gllug] Cost of RedHat vs Ubuntu desktop support

[Hari Sekhon]

John Edwards wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 06:06:33PM +0100, Hari Sekhon wrote:
> <snip> 
>   
>> Also, have you see how much Ubuntu charges for desktops? It's $250 per 
>> year for 9-5 support or $900 for 24x7 *per desktop*. That's outrageous! 
>> Over years I think this racks up to way more than M$... (although you 
>> probably get better support for that price but still...)
> <snip>
>
> Ignoring the "Basic" support option (which is web-only with 2-day
> response time) the cost of the cheapest option is $299 per year:
> 	http://www.redhat.com/rhel/desktop/compare/
>
> RedHat support times are 9am-9pm EST for USA, or 9am-5pm EST for the
> rest of the world. There is no 24x7 support option. I guess they don't
> want to do any desktop support to companies working outside of the USA
Redhat has previously said they aren't that interested in the desktop 
market as they don't know how to make money out of it.

The point I was making was it was expensive to go this route for 
desktops, which it is. This is one reason why most organizations stick 
to M$ desktops, the exception being IT folks who can install and support 
their own workstations.

I can't blame redhat for shunning the desktop market, it's not that easy 
to turn a profit from it, and I have to say they continue to go from 
strength to strength as a profitable company, so best of luck to them.

Would you want to pay $900 *every year for every desktop machine* in 
your organization? C'mon... and people talk about the never ending 
treadmill of M$, this would be a more expensive and faster moving 
treadmill, I don't know how many accountants or IT staff would thank you 
for that...

-h

-- 
Hari Sekhon
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harisekhon

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