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Red Hat To Drop Boxed Retail Distribution

Posted by timothy on from the treasured-collectables dept.

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."

6 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. Bad move PR-wise by k98sven · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re:Can't possibly be right by Alan+Cox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of course its always rather likely it isn't right. This is slashdot after all. The real story is naturally a little different.

  3. Re:Betting the Farm? by big+tex · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  4. Re:This is not a good move IMO by UndercoverBrotha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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!
  5. Re:Can't possibly be right by Alan+Cox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  6. Re:This is not a good move IMO by phalse+phace · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Putting those boxes on the shelves is in no way cheap. Do you ever see Red Hat flying off the shelves? Only when its time to replace the box with the next version.

    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.