Is There Room for Xandros in the Server Market?

Robert writes to tell us CBROnline is reporting that almost two years after discussing the possibility, Xandros has finally named a date for their first Linux server product. From the article: "While there are plenty of Linux server distributions on the market, the market is undoubtedly dominated by Red Hat, Novell's SUSE Linux a distant second. In order to find a gap in the market with Xandros Server, due May 1, the company will have to differentiate it from the pack."

Comments

Not a wise move

[liliafan]

Whilst I wish Xandros a lot of luck in their venture, I think it is a mistake for them to move into the server market. I haven't used Xandros myself but I have known people that have, they have nothing but good things to say about their desktop environment, Xandros is the kinda company we need leading the way for the desktop market, they seems to have done a lot of what lindows (now linspire) promised, a high quality desktop platform with decent windows compatibility (thanks to crossover and wine).

They are doing so great in that market a risky move like this could undo a lot of that good work, they could end up eating it on the server market not being able to compete with the big boys.

Whilst the article mentions some cool stuff they are planning, if people want a windows like management console they are likely to stick to windows.

Regardless I wish them luck.

Is there room?

[jchawk]

I'm sure there probably is room for them but the thing that I always struggle with is the cost associated with running distro's such as Redhat or something from Novell... If you look at what you can expect to pay Redhat per year to keep your server up to date with updates it definately starts to get expensive...

I'm all for linux on corporate equipment that's why I've been running Debian for years, I have boxes in production that were installed years ago with Debian and have happily churned away without any trouble, and really have only had to be rebooted a few times to update the kernel due to security trouble.

I know I know people want support and need to have that warm fuzzy feeling but if you higher good help you should be able to support these boxes internally on your own.

why not?

[Sfing_ter]

I have used Xandros since it came out,before actually, they bought Corel Linux. And has "out of the box" the best windows network integration. Even allows AD domain logins, not that other distros don't have this capability, just not straight out of the box.They also create a fake "C:\ Drive" environment so converting some people is easier.

What they are doing is creating a server that supplies updates and management to the rest of Xandros boxen on the network, and groupware. Why shouldn't they? So far nobody has integrated this functionally proper even in the windows environment.

Re:why not?

[zerocool^]

Ahhh, so that's what happened to Corel Linux. I wondered about that. I've got several old CDs of corel laying around somewhere, along with a Corel Office product (corel office? forget what the name was). I remember them being a cut above the rest in usability.

Seriously, though... the competition was redhat 6.2. No one knew how to edit their x11 config. By comparison, today every linux distro is significantly easier than Corel was back in their day.

Good to go alongside their business desktop distro

[ylikone]

They already have the Xandros Business Edition which provides a desktop environment that looks and feels much like a better-looking Windows 2003. Unlike Windows, Xandros is easy to install and maintain, and it doesn't come with all of the security flaws and virus vulnerabilities that Windows has. Xandros Business Edition also includes the full edition of CrossOver Office. That means that if there is a major Windows software package that you can't live without, chances are you will be able to install and run it on Xandros through CrossOver. Now with the introduction of Xandros Server, which will go hand-in-hand with their business desktop distro, they are ready to eliminate Windows from almost any corporate environment. More power to them!

On the contrary- a very wise move

[RebornData]

It's pretty clear they aren't going after the "traditional" UNIX server market... that would be suicide.

I'm a bilingual (Windows and *nix) small business consultant, and I would love to see a really easy Linux server for very small companies. I'm really big on long-term maintainability, and while I've got no problem editing config files, my customers do, and frankly there aren't alot of Linux fluent consultants serving very small companies either. So I've been very hesitant to roll our Linux-based servers because I don't want to leave them totally high and dry should we stop working together.

I've looked at what's out there today with webmin and such, and it just is not something you could turn your average windows-educated sysadmin loose on and know that they'd be able to add users and new desktops, create shares, etc... If Xandros can put something together that has a consistent, logical config UI for non-linux users and package it with great maintenance and support, it would be very welcome. I just hope the price is right... it's got to be cheaper than windows SBS 2003 OEM to compete.

-R

Re:On the contrary- a very wise move

[Kadin2048]

Well said. I think that Linux has a reputation--arguably undeserved, perhaps--of being hard to set up and difficult to maintain. When a small business needs to get a server, it's very easy to get them to buy Windows because Linux has a perceived learning curve; there's a feeling that if you have Linux servers, you need to have a full-time sysadmin, while a Windows file/print/email server can be run by someone for whom it's not their primary job.

While I take factual issue with this, it's an attitude I've heard being repeated from various small-business owners. I've literally heard people complaining about how much they're paying for Windows server licenses, asked them why they didn't do Linux, and gotten the response "oh, that's too complicated." These aren't totally stupid people, either; they think that Linux is an enterprise/datacenter product and not so much a small/medium size business one.

I think there's a definite market for a Linux-based small office server, something that's easy to set up, deploy and maintain, and which doesn't require a lot of knowledge of Linux as an OS to keep running. I.e., everything should be accessible through GUI tools, lots of hand-holding through setup, use of Windows terminology, big color manuals with lots of pictures, well supported, etc.

While I wouldn't probably buy such a product, I know of people who would, and perhaps Xandros is the company to make it.