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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.
When someone is ready to try an alternative to Windows, its much easier to pick up the CDs rather than wait hours for a public download to finish...and lose the enthusiasm for a change in OS.
Solid!
Perhaps this may be a boon for MandrakeSoft? The novice home user who only wants to casually look at Linux or who lacks broadband might feel more comfortable going to the store to get Linux CDs.
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.
If it keeps them effective, cool. This part concerns me though:
--
The company hopes that the changes help to overcome the long lead time needed to produce boxed sets. With a six-month release cycle, and with the rapid pace of Linux development, many packages shipped on CD are obsolete before they ever reach retail shelves.
--
Kinda valid, but sounds more like their boxed versions simply aren't selling that well. Not blasting them by the way. I always buy my Linux distros just to support the company, and this is the now only company I get my Linux distro from. I trust they won't go away...
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.
What will will do for businesses putting redhat on the desktop in regard to the RedHat trademark? Are they going to have to pay for it online, or will they drop all the trademark stuff for RedHat Linux?
Maybe this will make RedHat make like Debian in regards to trademarking, etc. Maybe not since they should still be selling the support packages.
...given that RedHat made most money from their support contract. I've been using Linux for 10 years, have tried a lot of distros, but never shelled out money for a boxed set, and especially these days, with broadband internet access and CD burners everywhere, I'd assume most people just download the ISO images anyway. I don't think RedHat ever made money with the boxed sets, and most people won't be affected by this move either.
Nothing to see here, move on.
Who's the leading distributor period?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Red Hat was probably hemorrhaging cash in the consumer retail arena... so rather than continue to fight a loosing battle, they're regrouping and doing what works for them.
It's a novel conect in the IT economy.... focus on what actually makes your company money, and dump what you loose money on. Red Hat isn't a Microsoft... they don't have the capital to piss away to maintain market share. They *need* to focus on what makes money.
Red Hat is provider for Linux OS for the Enterprises. They want to concentrate more on the RH 2.1 Advance Server, and not waste too much time on the retailing the distribution.
Moveover since the developers will be actually the one doing the packaging as well, Red Hat's job will become in including those packages in their ES/AS/WS distributions. Making the developer list open to all, will in-turn help them making their ES/AS/WS services better.
They want to be a service oriented company, rather than a product oriented. And this is the only Open Source Model that will survive.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
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?
Who's the leading distributor period?
I believe that would be www.linuxiso.org
When took one of RH's training classes a few years ago the instructor was telling us that less then 10% of RH's income is from the distro and they would drop it if they could. It was only a marketing tool for them. That most of RH's income is from support, training, and custom development.
Then look at RH's support model they are like Sun they don't want to deal with the lower tier customers, they only want to deal with the large corporations. Guess you could say Red Hat is turning into a traditional Unix company.
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.
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.
I have to acknowledge them for a good business move.
They have obviouly looked at the retail market and made the same observation as the rest of the software world: Don't attempt to compete with Microsoft in the channel.
Understand that Microsoft eats software companies for lunch by luring them into a den where the buyers for Office Depot, CompUSA, Best Buy, etc.don't know RedHat, Corel, Claris, etc. from the $1 CD's they sell from CD Specialists, Inc.
Microsoft pulls software companies into the retail space just to watch them LOSE money. Red Hat has decided to stop the bleeding.
Here's Another Point:
Nothing in this announcement says that Red Hat will stop providing media. They will continue to provide media just like every other software company you haven't heard about does.
Have you ever seen AIX on the retail store shelf?
This is a very smart move for Red Hat. You'll find the media out there, but someone else will provide ala Mandrake.
Red Hat has a tight lip. They don't elaborate. Yet they keep gaining market share.
Their timing here is impeccable.
People bash Red Hat all the time and Red Hat people just don't answer. They don't get into the frey. But Red Hat developers are on all the mailing lists and they're giving us their time and expertise. That's RH encouraged. I'm an old timer and it's taken me a long time to discover what Red Hat is doing. I may use a different Distribution, but they are good for Linux.
I think that you have missed the point where redhat says that the developers of packages will maitain their own rpms for the distro. As a developer that had to create rpms, i see clearly that this move would influense the way developers produce - distribute their programs. If a developer maintains the rpms, he will probably tell people to use them in their install, this would mean that he would tell people to use RedHat to install the software on !
RedHat is simply recognising, like Microsoft, that is has to attract developers for it's platform, so that people would develope for RedHat platform, not for general Linux.
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).
Before I had DSL, it was a mail-order show to get a new distro. Well; big deal. It takes time for boxed sets to reach the stores, it takes time for silver ISOs to be shipped out. Point is, even if all distro makers were to abandon the cardboard box, companies like CheapBytes (only plugging since I've dealt w/ them numerous times in the past) will be happy to step in and take the money being left on the table.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
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.
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.
Every time I buy a boxed set at CompUSA, I see people watching and I know they're wondering about using it. Certainly, they're seeing that people DO buy this "Linux thing" they've been hearing about. At work, people grab the box...or the manuals and comment on how neat it all looks. They claim to be surprised at how much you get in the package, thinking that only MS can do stuff like that. When vendors come in, I purposely leave the materials laying around and I always get a question or two about where our "commitment" is to Linux, usually followed by a resigned sigh as they realize that they'll have to adapt or lose. Red Hat is seriously underestimating the power of that box, and Linux will suffer because of this.
debian netinstall ~40mb iso, once its installed, ctrl c out of the package selection
The entire point of putting a distro of Linux on the shelf is public awareness marketing - It's specifically to reach those who don't have a geek friend to install Linux for them. It's an investment to get those people to get into [RH] Linux, and then down the road those consumers come back when they need servers... Magazines exist solely on this principle - You can't have a readerbase if people don't know you exist. While I acknowledge that it isn't cheap to make a shelf copy available - besides packaging, RH and Mandrake were packaging additional CDs of material and offering a year of telephone support in some cases - the reality to the decision of discontinuing a shelf copy is there is a LOT of market exposure lost. This is RH saying the Linux Desktop doesn't exist.
They don't have the capital to piss away to maintain market share.
Red Hat had the capital...but instead they just chose to spend $700 million of it on a compiler company and some questionable dot coms.
Setting aside a fraction of that $700 million to continue to provide an easy way for consumers to get their distribution from retail channels would have been the strategically correct thing to do. But then again, that would be acting like a desktop software company (as opposed to the server software company Red Hat has traditionally been).
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
If RedHat isn't going to distribute their wares through a retail channel, then someone else will. It may not be from Red Hat, but anyone can distribute a copy of Red Hat Linux.
It will happen.
The headline is inaccurate. The information that will be released on Monday is regarding the development direction of Red Hat Linux. Further information on the retail product line will be forthcoming closer to the product launch plan this fall.
Havoc Pennington
Red Hat, Inc.
Yes, they run you as root by default and they've got other problems, but Lindows actually seems to want to be on Compusa shelves, and is more likely to be useful to Compusa's customers.
Redhat was just there because they thought they had to be, not because it was making them any money. Linux won't die from the Compusa shelves if Mr. Robertson moves fast.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Most people I know who use Linux *did* start with CD's and many of them were CD's that I burned. So the real issue is that if someone wants to redistribute the RedHat disks, they can.
The only thing that bothers me is that I think that RedHat needs to court small hobbyists as well as large enterprises. This is how they keep thir name recognition. I am wondering how long before they abandon their standard distributions all together. That IMO would be a very bad thing... I am NOT going to buy RedHat Enterprise Desktop just in order to study to pass the RHCE....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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."
-
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.
Once again, the point is missed: no computer neophyte installs *any* operating system. They bought a machine that had Windows pre-installed on it. They upgrade through Windows Update (if they can). They NEVER install an OS of any stripe.
To even begin considering installing an operating system takes them out of the league of the complete newbie and puts them in the realm of the half-clued. Even people with half a clue can click "OK" or make a choice from a menu of options.
I've run Red Hat 7.1 and now 9.0 on my box at home. In both cases the install could have been done by just about anyone with that mythic half-a-clue. The installation CDs are bootable. The installation programs take care of disk partitioning and formatting as required. Kudzu finds the different hardware pieces. The only thing that didn't work right out of the box was the Nvidia ethernet system on my new Abit NF7-M motherboard. Other than that, everything worked "out of the box" for both that board and the Asus P5A (and the video/audio/ethernet cards used with it) it replaced.
My wife runs Win98 on her machine. I've installed Windows on it and on the many machines I worked on at the school she taught in. Installing Windows is no more and no less difficult than any modern Red Hat distribution. Except the built-in VIA hardware on her Biostar M7-VKQ wasn't recognized and I had to manually install driver for them *all*. I suppose that makes Win98 *more* difficult than Red Hat!
This is the ideal point for Mandrake to seriously attack the consumer market. With Red Hat out of the picture, I think Mandrake can easily fill the gap. If Mandrake doesn't rebound in the near future, they are gone IMO...
KoalaBear33
......The worst thing in my life happened when the stock market started mattering more than the economy
Red Hat to change development model, abandon shrinkwrap
The company's next major release, codenamed "Cambridge," will not be provided in boxed, retail form, according to company communications with employees and developers, which have been made available to Linux and Main.
Additionally, Red Hat plans extensive changes in its development and distribution model. The changes will begin with development lists being made public, and will be followed by return of package maintanence to the developers themselves. Currently, packages are "handed over" to Red Hat developers, who then tune them for inclusion in a particular version. Under the new system, developers will maintain control of the packages.
The company hopes that the changes help to overcome the long lead time needed to produce boxed sets. With a six-month release cycle, and with the rapid pace of Linux development, many packages shipped on CD are obsolete before they ever reach retail shelves.
cpeterso
Nearly every,though no all, version of RH I've run has been a boxed set. I buy it retail because I want to contribute to the idea that Linux is a great OS. Taking it off the shelves means that M$ has, in maybe a small way, won a battle. No, it may not be selling the best, but I doubt Windows XP sells off the shelf very well either, since most get it with their new PC. Okay, so it may help a bottom line on an expense sheet somewhere, but there are intangeables to consider. Not retailing your OS says to the world "we're not a serious OS contender." Frankly, in my mind, this sets at least RH back a few years in the publics perception. >
Can order CDs from cheapbytes most of the distros they have are less then $6.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Could we please try to expunge this inane "Linux desktop is dead" meme? First off, it isn't -- or else my desktop is an illusion -- and secondly, you could only believe this if you hadn't been watching the evolution of Linux over the past ten years. I've been using it since the SLS days, and I can unequivocally state that the Linux desktop has been improving (at an increasing rate) ever since. Repeating alarmist but catchy phrases about the demise of the Linux desktop reveals the speaker's ignorance to those who use said desktops, without adding anything of consequence to the discussion.
About the only thing "dead" regarding the Linux desktop is twm...and it's only sleeping!
-Carter
(And yes, some of us really did like twm....)