Oracle, Dell, and Linux

Most corporations always see room for growth. For Dell, this growth was initially in the area of office and consumer personal computers. Now that this market appears to be saturated, they have set their sights on a new prize.

However, going after this prize clearly highlights some major shifts within the industry. First, there is the re-emphasis of the free and open source Linux operating system.

For years, Dell was one of the largest collectors of what the open source community refers to as the "Microsoft Tax". All computers, regardless of what the customers wanted, came pre-installed with one form of the Windows OS. The cost for the license was passed along to the consumer.

The strong shift to Linux, however, is not just because it's a free operating system for the consumer desktop. More importantly, Linux is gaining respect within the enterprise computing market. This means that Dell hardware running Linux is a direct competitor to Sun Microsystems.

Sun manufactures a proprietary operating system that runs on proprietary hardware. Dell is competing by offering a standards based hardware platform with a free and open operating system. There is absolutely no way that Sun can compete directly against this threat.

Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation clearly sees this. He is excited by the opportunities for growth that an enterprise relationship with Dell gives him. Dell is happy to be the supplier of a commodity. Dell makes money through providing reproducible systems at a very low cost. Every dollar that a buyer saves on the hardware, is another dollar that they can spend on Oracle software.

Finally, Dell has also announced that it sees growth on the 'commodity services' business as well. Some readers might look twice at this statement. How can a service be a commodity? Can a commodity vendor only understand transactions involving commodities?

Rather Dell has recognized that rampant standardization has created the circumstance where many of jobs in the computer industry are just like commodities. People that perform these tasks operate along strict guidelines for their actions. The outcome is often pre-determined or scripted based on the outcomes of their testing.

There are changes happening in the computer industry. They are happening very quickly, and they will change the way that people come to view the products that are produced and the people that produce them. A new triumvirate of Oracle, Dell, and Linux hope to be at the top of the pack while this change is happening.

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