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OK - so let me get this straight. The new kernel is better than other Linux kernels, but....it may break a variety of software applications or device drivers that run on those other popular Linux versions. And if I buy this, I get to also buy more Oracle/Sun servers and storage and "engineered systems" that will all work faster and better. But I don't seem to get strong compatibility with the whole world of x86 based server systems (Dell, HP, IBM, etc), storage (NetApp, EMC, etc), and software applications that run on, let's say Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Or maybe I do, they seem to say something about some version being compatible with Red Hat, but then I get lost trying to figure out what they are saying.
For that matter, it seems that I may also have issues if I want to use the virtualization market leader VMWare, with these new Oracle software offerings, since they prefer I use their virtualization solution, which has "1-2% market share" (and I think that is market share within Oracle users even). I certainly don't know anyone running Oracle virtualization who also does buy millions of dollars of their other offerings.
This sure feels like a big pain for any software company or corporate application developer who wants to support a wide range of hardware and software options to try and support. I guess that is Oracle's plan, to make everyone buy 100% of everything from Oracle. Which feels like the battle from 40 years ago, but maybe they are smarter than everyone. It will be interesting to see how the sales of their products go over the next 12-18 months as the landscape changes.