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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."
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.
Has it anything to do with the KDE Klash? (Not likely though)
From reading the article it does seem likely that the KDE thing is part of the issue, since customizing of packages is one of the major things that's going to change.
I'm sure that the money they lose on boxed set is a major consideration as well.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Of course its always rather likely it isn't right. This is slashdot after all. The real story is naturally a little different.
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!
There are a collection of things happening the first of which will be officially announced monday. Suffice to say that Red Hat isn't crazy enough to leave people unable to obtain software on CD, nor is it going enterprise only..
You will however have to wait until Monday
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.
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.