Survey Finds Red Hat Customers Willing To Stay With Company if it Cuts Prices

Red Hat (RHAT) customers are mulling their options. But they can be bought.

That’s one of the takeaways from a fascinating report today from Pacific Crest’s Brendan Barnicle based on a survey he did of 118 enterprise operating system buyers, including 86 Red Hat support customers. The goal of the survey was to see how Linux users are responding to the new offerings from Oracle (ORCL) and the Microsoft (MSFT)/Novell (NOVL) partnership.

Reading the results of the study, you reach several conclusions. One, most customers are seriously considering the new offerings. Two, Red Hat can hold on to most of them, if they are willing to cut prices far enough. And three, customers seem a little more interested in the Microsoft/Novell offerings than those from Oracle.

Here are a few details:

- Asked whether they would consider switching from their current Linux support provider to Oracle, 26% said they definitely would not; 29% said they definitely would consider it. For Microsoft/Novell, 17% would definitely not consider switching, 27% definitely would consider it.
- Asked who they would chose as a provider if they were to switch Linux support, 29% of Red Hat customers named Microsoft/Novell; 20% named Oracle.
- The survey asked, what price discount would your current provide have to offer to keep you as a customer. Among Red Hat customers, 31% said they would need a discount of 50%-74%; 37% said they want a discount of 25%-49%; 27% said they would stay for a discount of 1%-24%.
- The survey asked, how important would a discount be in order to keep you as a customer? Among Red Hat customers, 64% said “very important.” Just 3% said “not at all important.”