Red Hat share price slumps

Red Hat’s share price has slumped by almost a quarter after Oracle announced it is going after Red Hat’s Linux support revenues with its own service targeted at Red Hat customers.

Red Hat has in turn criticised Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux programme, announced by Oracle chief executive officer Larry Ellison at the company’s annual Oracle Openworld user conference this week.

Oracle has pledged that it will offer enterprise Linux support equivalent to that which Oracle offers for its own database and applications, while at the same time offering a Linux support package to Red Hat customers which it says is much cheaper.

But Red Hat has now responded to Oracle’s announcement on its website, under the ‘Unfakeable Linux’ heading, saying, “Oracle's support for Linux reaffirms Red Hat's technical industry leadership and the end of proprietary Unix.”

Replying to speculation that Oracle’s move could be the end of the two companies’ existing market partnership, Red Hat said, “Red Hat has had a productive seven-year relationship with Oracle.

“Red Hat will continue to work closely with Oracle to optimise Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss middleware subscriptions for Oracle products, and to support joint customers.”

Red Hat then went on to trash Oracle's full support promises for Red Hat Linux.