Linux's Desktop Dilemma

It hasn't been a banner year for Linux on the desktop. But the open-source community isn't conceding the fight.

Vendors such as Ximian and Sun Microsystems are pushing ahead with Linux offerings for the desktop, despite the breakdown of some key Linux product drives.

And solution providers say these vendors have their work cut out for them. So far in its young life, Linux has matured on the server front but remains a toddler on the desktop.

Open-source guru Miguel de Icaza says Linux has much promise as a mainstream desktop OS.

Last year, Linux accounted for an estimated 27 percent of server operating system software shipments, compared with 41 percent for Microsoft Windows, according to research firm IDC. Yet just 1.5 percent of client OS software shipments were Linux vs. 91 percent for Windows and 4.1 percent for Apple Computer's Macintosh OS, IDC reports.

"What needs to happen is a mind-set change," says open-source guru Miguel de Icaza, co-founder and CTO of Boston-based Ximian. "When people have to learn a new system, you have to lower the barrier, make it similar [to existing operating systems] and make interfaces similar to existing applications to make the transition easy."

The failure to learn such lessons may have derailed some recent Linux desktop initiatives. Last year, the open-source community was abuzz over a proposed Linux interface for consumers from Eazel, a company launched by veterans of Apple and Netscape. Corel also had thrown itself into the open-source fray with Linux versions of WordPerfect Office and Corel Draw. While no one expected these efforts to dislodge vast numbers of Microsoft Office users, they at least seemed to be viable attempts to nurture the Linux desktop, industry observers say.

But they didn't last long. In mid-May, Eazel crashed and burned, closing its doors just two months after releasing its offering. Corel is struggling to sell off its Linux OS business and doesn't plan to upgrade its Linux applications until it sees a compelling business reason to do so, a spokes-woman says. And Dell Computer has stopped offering Linux as a pre-install option on its desktop and laptop PCs.

Still, the Linux faithful say there are myriad desktop applications,up to 2,400,although it's hard to find many that have reached critical mass. "The biggest obstacle to Linux on the desktop is to get people to take a real serious look at it and figure out what it would really take for their applications to support it," says Jon "Maddog" Hall, executive director of Linux International, a nonprofit organization that promotes Linux.

Many vendors that tout Linux on the server end are sitting on the sidelines when it comes to the client. Scott Handy, director of Linux Solutions for IBM Software, says the IT giant is "fully behind enabling the Linux community to make something happen on the desktop." Yet that support means only that IBM is a member of the KDE and Gnome open-source groups and likewise "supports" Red Hat, Caldera and SuSE in their desktop efforts.

	The open-source operating sysytem is rolling ahead as a server platform but lacks momentum on the client side.

Ximian, however, remains undeterred. This week at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, the company is slated to announce its first shrink-wrapped SKUs: two editions of Ximian Desktop, says Nat Friedman, Ximian co-founder and vice president of product management. Ximian Desktop Standard Edition bundles the Ximian Gnome 1.4 desktop with a prerelease version of Ximian Evolution, a personal information manager that integrates management of e-mail, contacts, to-do lists and calendars. It also includes documentation and 30 days of Web-based tech support. The Ximian Desktop Professional Edition has the same features as the standard version but also includes Sun's StarOffice Suite and 90 days of tech support.

What's more, Ximian aims to drive development of Linux desktop applications, Web services and other software through the Mono Project, an open-source community initiative it launched last month to craft a Linux-based version of Microsoft's .Net platform. The project is designed to enable open-source developers to build .Net applications more quickly and run them on multiple OS platforms, including Windows, Linux and Unix.

"A lot of engineering and research facilities are switching to Linux. I'm still not sure about secretaries," says de Icaza, who's also president of the Gnome Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to creating an open-source platform for home, office and appliance desktops. "We're pushing the Mono Project as a way to build better applications faster and with less resources, a new way to build desktop applications and vertical applications."

Ximian wants first and foremost to solve the "two machine problem" in corporate, government and educational settings, Friedman and de Icaza say. In those venues, many users have a Linux desktop to monitor other Linux systems and a Windows PC for e-mail and corporate documents. "We want to make it possible for them to use Linux as their primary business desktop," Friedman says.

Ximian also wants to make it easier for users to automatically update, manage and remove software,a key capability in the open-source world, where virtually everyone can be a co-author of a program. To that end, the company is enhancing its Red Carpet program, which monitors configurations and allows users to update their software automatically. The new service, Red Carpet Express, will offer priority updates and guarantee users high-bandwidth access for faster, uninterrupted downloads for $9.95 a month, says Jon Perr, Ximian's vice president of marketing.

'The biggest obstacle to Linux on the desktop is to get people to take a real serious look at it.' -- Jon "Maddog" Hall, Linux International

For corporate users who want an ASP-based service for software management and version control, Ximian is launching Red Carpet Corporate Connect. "With this offering, using a Web-based administration console, corporate users can create private, secure custom channels and can post internal standards, post their own software, define users, and manage groups and access privileges," Perr says.

Realizing that Linux is not yet an operating system that just anyone can use, Ximian is focusing on three constituencies: developers with knowledge of Linux; the "transactional desktop," where the main function is data entry/retrieval and Linux is much less expensive than Windows; and countries seeking open-source options for delivering social services without "the huge cost of proprietary software," Perr says.

Leaving consumers for later is probably a good idea, especially in the wake of Eazel's demise. Though Linux has exceeded expectations on the server, it still remains in the realm of techies, or at least people who can download software, integrate applications and load their own operating systems, says Amy Wohl, president of Wohl Associates, a Narberth, Pa., consulting firm. Linux's frailty on the desktop is more of a business issue than a technical issue, she says.

"Linux is perfectly capable of doing anything. The problem is nobody in the community that writes Linux software has a clue as to what an end user looks like, let alone what he needs," Wohl says.

Whereas Eazel misjudged on the customer side, Corel may have erred on the distribution side, industry executives say. If Corel was serious about Linux applications, it should have thought twice before creating its own version of the operating system, says Tim Witham, director of the Open Source Development Lab in Beaverton, Ore.

"They had WordPerfect, a really good app. But by coming out with their own [Linux] distribution, they alienated the other distributions. Why would Red Hat carry Corel apps?" Witham says. Ximian, on the other hand, has not "jammed their thumb in anyone else's eye," he adds.

With Corel out of the mix, Sun's StarOffice is a key component of any Linux desktop movement, observers say. Early last month, Sun said it had 5.7 million "total binary downloads" of StarOffice, an estimated 35 percent of which are for Linux. But exactly how many of those suites are in active use is impossible to tell.

Microsoft, which rules the productivity software market with its venerable Office suite, is dismissive of StarOffice's prospects. Asked if StarOffice could make headway against Microsoft Office, a Microsoft insider said, "That ain't going to happen." One reason for that viewpoint is that the software market isn't necessarily a zero-sum game. For example, in late June, Sun trumpeted a 25,000-unit sale of Star-Office to the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency. But in that deal, StarOffice displaced Applix software, not Microsoft software.

Ironically, some Linux proponents see Microsoft's Windows XP licensing strategy as giving Linux an opening, even among the nontechnical. Todd Barrett, networking sales manager at CPU Sales & Services, a Waltham, Mass.-based integrator, says Microsoft's aggressive licensing and registration scheme for XP,in which individuals have to register their license every time they change a hardware component,has piqued interest in alternatives.

"Some customers are bringing in Linux to kick the tires. It's new, it's cool and some people hate Windows," Barrett says.

Richard Warren, chief strategy officer at Internosis, an Arlington, Va.-based integrator, says he heard of one recent instance where a customer talking to a Microsoft sales rep was considering a switch from a Windows version of Office to a Linux version of StarOffice. "[But] I don't really know if it was sincere, a negotiation stance or the enterprise equivalent of a poke in the eye with a sharp stick," Warren says.

Nevertheless, Linux faces problems that Windows has had years to iron out. Integrators cite the lack of Linux support for popular graphics cards and other hardware. "Buy any printer, video board, modem or CD drive at your local store. Is there a Linux software driver in the box? Not likely," says Mike Drips, an independent consultant in Overland Park, Kan.

Some solution providers say Linux just needs a chance to shake itself out on the desktop. "I see Linux over a period of time giving Microsoft a run for its money, even among mainstream users," says Hal Davison, president of Davison Consulting, a Sarasota, Fla.-based e-solutions provider.

For Ximian's de Icaza, broader adoption of Linux on the desktop is just a matter of persistence. Linux's success "is not a theory," he says. "We've commoditized the horizontal operating system. We have in StarOffice a common office suite, we have the Mozilla browser and we have Evolution, all for a very cheap price. There is no need for proprietary solutions."

ELIZABETH MONTALBANO contributed to this story.