MESSAGE
| DATE | 2008-05-06 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Red Hat's future needs the GNU Desktop
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Linux & Open Source
Red Hat`s Challenge By Jason Brooks 2008-04-11
Article Views: 16696 Article Rating:starstarstarstarstar / 12
PDF Version Print Version Sponsored By To bolster growth, Red Hat must
pursue the high-volume Linux space.
Five years ago, Red Hat sent a shock wave through the Linux community
when it announced a new bleeding-edge development pace for its flagship
distribution, Red Hat Linux.
Starting with Red Hat Linux 9, which was soon rebranded as Fedora Core,
Red Hat forced its users to choose between the stable, supported and
per-system fee-toting Red Hat Enterprise Linux and a fast-moving,
community-supported and fee-free distribution.
At the time, the move was widely regarded as Red Hat turning its
back on the high-volume, general-purpose Linux market in favor of the
lower-hanging fruit of Unix-to-Linux conversions in large enterprises,
typified by banks and other big financial institutions. And while the
action of canceling its flagship support-optional Linux distribution
spoke loudly enough, Red Hat tossed in, for good measure, some unkind
words for Linux's highest-volume aspirations—those concerning Linux
on the desktop.
In late 2003, Matthew Szulik, Red Hat CEO at the time, was quoted as
saying Microsoft Windows was a better desktop option. Szulik confined
those comments to the consumer space, but Red Hat's wafer-thin desktop
options for the enterprise indicated that the biggest name in Linux
wasn't ready to back desktop Linux for companies, either.
Click here to read about Red Hat's impressive 2008 earnings.
Fast-forward to today: Red Hat remains focused most keenly on the
enterprise server stack, and its supported desktop offerings remain thin
compared with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Ubuntu Linux. Based on
Red Hat's current desktop Linux offerings, the company's position seems
to be that Linux is not yet ready to challenge the Windows desktop in
a serious way, and Red Hat may be correct.
While Linux is as good and perhaps better suited to the needs of knowledge
workers who do not require Windows-only applications—a category into
which I fall—the lack of an identity and management solution for Linux
that's comparable to Microsoft's Active Directory and Group Policy is
retarding Linux's growth.
But based so far on my tests of Red Hat's Fedora 9, which is due in
late April, the pieces required to fill this gap for Linux—namely,
the PolicyKit management and FreeIPA identity components that make their
debut in this Fedora—are starting to fall into place.
The challenge that remains for Red Hat and Linux in general lies in
extending the platform's software packaging embrace beyond open-source
applications to include the works of third-party developers and internal
enterprise development teams.
Red Hat has done well to focus on shoring up the core of the Linux
platform and business, but if Linux is to grow beyond its data center
environs and assume first-class status among volume platforms, now
is the time for Linux's biggest brand to shore up its strength on the
platform's periphery.
eWEEK Labs Executive Editor Jason Brooks can be reached at
jbrooks-at-eweek.com.
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