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Red Hat To Drop Boxed Retail Distribution
An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat, the leading American distributor of Linux, is abandoning the retail channel, the company is expected to announce Monday, says this story in Linux and Main. Non-Red Hat developers will be given a greater role in deciding what's in upcoming Red Hat distributions, too."
Wonder why this is?
Has it anything to do with the KDE Klash? (Not likely though)
Or is it just that this way they don't loose as much money?
The latter, in my opinion (humble as it is) is the most likely. Of course, it could be something completely different.
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
As long as I can download the ISOs from Finland,
I dont' really care. Redhat's disto is great;
but their concentration on the server market
will hurt their reputation amoung the home
and desktop markets.
There must have been a misunderstanding here. Surely they don't think that their cash flow won't be injured if they stop producing shrinkwrap software? Both companies and Joe Sixpack like cardboard boxes and plastic CD cases. ISO-download-only would literally destroy their company.
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
I think Red Hat is making a mistake.
There is enormous PR value in having a retail product available, even if it is not particularily profitable.
Example: Ericsson is widely known as a "cell phone manufacturer". Actually, they make very little money off selling consumer products like cell phones. Ericsson has always made its money off the sales of system hardware. (switches and whatnot)
But it's the consumer products that have given them brand-recognition, and that is worth a lot.
I think Red Hat should take note of this.
This sounds like they are downsizing some of their workforce to me. Yes, I know that the article said this move was to improve release cycle times but it sounds like they are just plain getting rid of the retail line and there will be some layoffs too as certain people are no longer needed.
Who's the leading distributor period?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
This is #2.
#1 was the one-year end-of-life policy:
I'm perfectly willing to pay extra for ongoing support on old Red Hat versions. I'm perfectly willing to upgrade remotely every year a-la FreeBSD buildworld. I'm perfectly willing to pay extra for a "Small Biz Server" product.
However, all Red HAt has to offer me is "hobbyist version" and an "advanced workstation".
Luckily, Linux is not Windows, I switched all servers to FreeBSD except a few that belong to clients. When they end-of-life, you can guess what OS they will be switched to.
Now here's strike #2: no more boxed set, which I bought regularly.
Tell me Red Hat, don't you want my money?
Let's face it, RH is *NOT* targeted at the types of users who are going to pick up software at Best Buy and CompUSA. Even people who want to try linux are going to be put off by RH.
It's just not desktop/home friendly. No flash, no mp3 abilities, and GNOME, while much improved, isn't quite there yet. (File selection dialog, you know it)
This means that the only distro you're going to find at BB and CompUSA is going to be SuSE, at least until or if Mandrake ever manages to find another retail distributor.
RH is choosing to concentrate on the business space. Which is good, since their efforts there are somewhat lacking. (RHAS is dreadful, but with improvement it'd be decent)
I buy the boxed sets, at least every other release. Yes, it's kind of silly, but I like having the "real" CD. It just looks sexier that way.
:)
Vote with your wallet and all of that. Remember, the busisness world counts sales, not people.
Also, I don't program, so it's my way of giving a little back to the nice people at SuSE for sponsoring KDE developers and the like.
I may not have a stall in the Bazar, but I can bring doughnuts to share.
I think I need a new sig here.
"In my experience, anyone who is ready to try an alternative to Windows is going to be more turned off by the price of a boxed set than the amount of time it takes to download ISOs."
I didn't realize Windows XP....was only $89(Oem)...this makes it even harder for the boxed product of Red Hat to sell...Joe Consumer would probably opt for a more known name anyway and its advertised ease of use, but when he wants to write a simple document is when he pays the piper!..after reading some of the comments and checking the price of both Boxed products, perhaps it does indeed make sense for RH to leave the shelves....
Solid!
I have never bought a boxed CD set. I never will it cost £40, if it cost $10 then I would, Linux is in demand at the moment, this demand will most likely grow companies should be working out how best to satisfy this demand not provide a product put some imaginary price on it then expect profits. Companies that satisfy a genuine need and give customers what they need thrive, others don't.
The first thing I thought of, is "Why doesn't Microsoft distribute electronically?"
For instance if someone buys a retail box of XP today, they get the original release without the most current bug fixes for the OS and IE. It seems it would be more convenient if they could just purchase a completely updated and fixed version of XP online and just download it. I'm sure they won't do it, because there are plenty of reasons not to, many of which have been mentioned by other posts here already, but nonetheless, it would be nice to have that option.
Personally, I would never buy a retail box of Linux because I always the very latest, and I can get that in a downloaded iso(usually).
Red Hat is attempting to push away from the casual user market and focus onto their enterprise line exclusively.
This will kill off the use of Red hat Linux (Non Enterprise) making other distro's like Mandrake and Suse more popular.
I can't believe that a company that is #1 in its industry just decides to call it quits in the retail market.
The reason for this is to focus all support on Enterprise customers, leaving no one who has old Retail boxes or downloaded versions on their own.
Red Hat, big mistake. Support us, the REAL users of your product. Don't turn the other way and throw up your hands like this.
I hope RedHat knows what they are doing, because they are going to make themselves invisible to many of the middle management who make buying decisions on software.
And flame me all you want, but what is bad for RedHat in most ways is bad for Linux. They are the lead flagbearer, like it or not.
Slackware... Its still the best distro in my opinion. I was told Gentoo provided the minimal feel I am used to with freebsd (os and compiler, no other crap tangled in to confuse things) - but they forgot to make its install elegant. Heck they forgot to even really make an install for it!
Next release, not permanently.
At the moment, Red Hat doesn't control enough of the market to warrant a full-blown retail version. True, a boxed set at least implants the Red Hat name in the small brain of Joe Simian, but as none of his butt-scratching cohorts are using it, he'll opt for Windows.
So Red Hat withdraws and bides its time, allowing its missionaries to slowly convert the masses, while throwing a small bone to the independent distributors. If the fervor spreads widely enough that the production costs will far outweigh by profits, the boxed sets will reappear in the garish light of Best Buys nationwide.
Agreed. At the officesupply "superstore" where I work, no retail boxed version of Red Hat (prior to version 9) has ever sold very well. At the most, we'd sell maybe 2-4 copies. Then they'd just sit on the shelf for months until the next version came out. Then rinse, repeat. Same with Mandrake, until we stopped carrying them.
But oddly, ever sinice version 9 came out we've sold about 10 copies, if not more. But if you compare that to the number of MS Windows we've sold, it's something like 10-1.
Really.
Later this year, Red Hat will announce their "Personal Desktop" distro, the one they've mentioned before. RH9 already has code in place for a snazzy graphical bootup; equally, you think they put all that effort into Bluecurve if the desktop market was dead?
RH are preparing themselves for pre-installations.
Just wait and see...
Not a large percentage of what is on the CDs, but more programmers of Free Software are paid by RedHat than any other distribution.
"How do I get my modem working?" while not being the most intelligent question, is certainly a valid one, especially for someone coming from a Windows environment (which was probably installed for them in the first place).
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
First, the Linux Desktop doesn't exist. It's a myth.
Second, all that advertisement comes at a price.
Third, anyone that is going to be coming to Red Hat for a server solution isn't going to base their decision on the fact that they saw a box copy at Wal-Mart.
Fourth, there are thousands of magazines that do quite well without having a single newsstand presence.
Fifth, the very fact that a year of telephone support is supposed to be a big buying plus is insane. The average consumer isn't going to jump and buy based on that. That would most likely scare them off. You might as well put a warning on the box saying, "This software is so incredibly difficult for the average person to use that we include a year of free tech support after which you'll still probably need help and buy three of four books on Linux at exorbitant prices if you're still using the software after a month."
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I have a good idea for ALL linux distributors that gets around the problem of the expense of boxed dostros and and the lack of and/or still slow speeds of Broadband in rural communities like mine. This would be mass FREE DISTRIBUTUION OF LINUX ON CD ROM along with a cd retail catalog for manuals, paid support, proprietary software trial disks and other items that currently come with boxed distros. This is the way that national ISPs like AOL and Earthlink made it to the top over local ones and therefore it could also be the way that Linux takes the desktop.