Dell Computer chairman and chief executive officer Michael Dell
hailed Dell's partnership with Oracle, and stressed that Linux and
his company's Intel boxes are the new wave of computing, during a
keynote presentation at OracleWorld yesterday.
"Dell and Oracle are leaders in their respected fields. Dell is the
number one computer systems company in the world and the number one
provider of servers in the US, and Oracle is the number one
provider of enterprise software in the world and the number one
[vendor] of relational databases in the US as well," he said.
Dell said his company uses Oracle9i Real Application Clusters
software internally for processing orders, adding that the
combination of Dell's Intel boxes, Oracle software and Linux
provided customers an alternative to high costs. He cited industry
figures showing Unix had lost market share, but that 55% of
enterprise revenue still goes to Unix systems.
"We think customers are paying too much for those systems and our
job is to drive those costs down," said Dell. "In Linux, we have
found a Unix that really is a better answer. We think Linux is the
new Unix," Dell said.
Sun was a particular target of Dell's comments. In 1996, Dell
shipped only 68% of the volume of servers that Sun did, but shipped
nearly three times more, 275%, than Sun's volumes by 2001, he said.
"However, we do that at 40% less cost than Sun. We're saving
customers a lot of money as we move to standards," said Dell.
A clustered computing scheme and modular-based architecture are
able to keep up with the needs of a growing business, Dell
said.
"The days of proprietary Unix, we think, are rapidly ending," as
far as this being the only platform for running mission-critical
applications.
"At Dell, we're driving this migration through a commitment to open
standards" and modular computing, Dell added.
He perceived that Linux, however, was still in a "gestation
period", in which it is gaining industry support from key systems
providers. The next wave is more packaged applications for Linux,
Dell believed.
"I think we're going to continue to see a very active migration of
customers away from the proprietary legacy platforms onto more
flexible, modular, standards-based solutions."
Dell had dire words for some unnamed vendors. "Sometimes, I'm asked
when spending is going to come back in our industry. Well, for some
companies, it's never going to come back," he said, because
customers have moved on to less expensive platforms.
Dell also cited fabric-based computing - in which systems such as
storage and networking are linked - as a growing trend. Dell said
the company was not planning large-scale acquisitions but may make
some small ones. "It's pretty clear that you don't just make
success by buying things," he said.
The company wants to develop an ecosystem for Oracle and other
platforms that feature professional services, software tools and
architecture and components such as SAN capabilities.
Dell said outsourcing of systems is not for everyone. "I'm not
convinced that every customer is going to do that. Certainly, we
have many customers who are doing that and there will probably be
many more but it's not [necessarily] the right answer for all
customers."
Some customers can benefit from sharing best practices and
outsourcing, but for other customers, outsourcing means handing off
a problem to somebody else, and ending up "with a totally different
problem," he added.
A Sun official said customers have been coming to Sun asking it to
take on Linux development, and that Dell is still largely a Windows
systems vendor.
"Where the money is for them still tends to be in that Windows
camp," said Peter Ulander, director of marketing in Sun's volume
systems products group.
Sun, he said, has the "fastest-selling single-processor box on the
market" right now with its low-end SunFire systems. Sun's Solaris
market share has been increasing.
Dell's product-related announcements pertaining to
Oracle:
- The company expanded its offerings on Dell PowerEdge servers to
include PowerEdge 2650 servers with a Dell-EMC CX400 storage array,
as well as a high-end configuration of clustered eight-way
PowerEdge 8450 servers with the Dell-EMC CX600 storage array. The
new Dell-EMC storage solutions are scheduled to ship in
December.
- To boost solutions for Oracle9i database with Real Application
Clusters on Red Hat Linux, Dell configurations will support the
Oracle Cluster File System and EMC PowerPath high-availability
software early next year.