Analyst: What is the impact on Oracle's Unbreakable Linux on your business? How can you compete?
Red Hat exec: We're not seeing any direct threat. Billings are looking up.
Analyst: What about this Microsoft-Novell partnership?
Red Hat exec: Can't we talk about our quarter just a little here?

"Our conversations with Linux channel partners indicate that Red Hat's business in the third quarter was largely unaffected and any impact will take at least six months to play out. While the resellers were equally split on whether Red Hat will have to lower prices, we believe pricing pressures are inevitable as customers will at the very least use Oracle's pricing to negotiate deeper discounts."

"We are expecting a roughly in-line quarter to both our and Street estimates, as we believe recent concerns over competitive pressures from Oracle and
Novell/Microsoft have been overblown. We believe investors will be most closely focused on billings growth as the most meaningful metric to determine any
negative effect from competition, as well as management's commentary on the JBoss integration process."

"Comments from JBoss head Marc Fleury in late November
regarding a perceived lack of investment from Red Hat raised investors' concerns about the integration of the JBoss business into the Red Hat stack. Shortly
after, Fleury took paternity leave, which some investors read into as a sign of discord. Although we believe these concerns are overblown, we will be looking closely at commentary from management regarding the progress of the JBoss integration."