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Red Hat to Enter the Desktop Market
head_dunce writes "It looks like Red Hat is going to release their Global Desktop Linux in September and give Ubuntu a challenge for the Linux desktop market. Red Hat Global Desktop 'would be sold with a one-year subscription to security updates.'" It looks like another choice for the proverbial Aunt Tillie. The release is being delayed in order to provide greater media compatibility, "to permit users to view a wide range of video formats on their computers."
It seems Ubuntu is capturing all attention right now:
% 2Cgentoo%2Credhat&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
http://google.com/trends?q=suse%2Cfedora%2Cubuntu
And how long before CentOS creates a perfect replica thanks to the GPL?
I am officially gone from
Unfortunately it isn't possible for the distros to have this installed by default because the US patent and copyright system is completely broken.
Couldn't they install it by default for non-US regional releases?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
According to TFA, Red Hat is targetting public administration and small business in developing countries. This is a very price-conscious market. If the only competitive advantage they have over the competition (Ubuntu, pirated Windows, etc) is that they offer some warm-and-fuzzy feeling that the product is supported by a corporation, they are doomed to fail. Canonical already offer support à la carte (you buy support only if you need it), which make Red Hat Global Desktop compulsory subscription a fairly though sell.
Red Hat (and Novell) strategy of charging per-seat "subscription" is doomed to fail on the desktop. Really, this is paramount to the proprietary software business model of charging licensing fees per seat. And why would anybody choose to engage a recurring cost for an *operating system* is beyond me (but then, people flocked to "Software Assurance", go figure). To have any chance, they would need to charge very little for this "subscription", which raise the question of profitability. Maybe they would have a chance if they where giving away these desktop "subscriptions" to existing customers of RHEL as a perk.
Red Hat never understood the Linux desktop market, and apparently never will. It is a good thing they dominate a profitable niche in replacing Solaris as a platform to run Oracle and other enterprise software, because they completely suck at market development. I would hate them to go away; they are very goods corporate Open-Source citizens that contributes significantly to key Open-Source project, so I hope this niche will not dry up in the near future.
As a side note, if you think Red Hat can afford to dispatch a field engineer for desktop problem on the premise of a small business customer, your expectations need a little adjustment.
:wq