Game On! Wintel Faces Challengers On The Desktop


CRN logo By Paula Rooney, ChannelWeb

11:00 AM EST Wed. Nov. 22, 2006
From the November 22, 2006 issue of CRN
Page 1 of 3
R Cubed Technologies is one of the few system builders in the United States betting the farm on desktop Linux.

At a time when most of its competitors are focused exclusively on the forthcoming launch of Windows Vista, this Midwestern firm last month became the first U.S. system builder to agree to ship notebooks and desktops preinstalled with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 from Novell.

The Galesburg, Ill., company's co-founder and president, Nathan Rockhold, isn't naive about the limited prospects for Linux on the desktop in 2007. R Cubed supports five different Linux desktop distributions but sells only about 30 Linux desktops per month.

Still, Rockhold believes that the compelling economics of an open-source desktop will drive more conversions once the stigma of running Linux on PCs dissipates. He noted that a Novell-supported Linux desktop with OpenOffice costs $50 per user per year while a similarly configured Microsoft desktop, without support, is more than $500.

That could be attractive for custom-system solution providers that have been struggling with profitability on desktop units. The more choices customers have, after all, the more competitive custom systems become.

As it is, the growing acceptance of Advanced Micro Devices processors as an alternative to Intel appears to be working to the custom-system channel's favor by driving down prices, spurring innovation and creating choices. And distributors say their system-building solution providers are increasingly embracing Linux in server and other applications. "We're seeing more customers putting investment behind Linux, and the feedback I'm getting is the margins are good," said Gary Gammon, vice president of marketing at Bell Microproducts, San Jose, Calif.

The desktop, though, is predominantly a Windows world, and many believe the forthcoming launch of Vista will overshadow Linux through 2007. But the XP to Vista conversion cyclethe first major desktop upgrade cycle in five yearswill present Linux desktop vendors with new opportunities to gain market share, Rockhold and other Linux backers say.

Rockhold, who prides himself on being the only system builder offering Linux across all platforms, also buys into Novell's contention that offering a total solution for the data centerLinux on notebooks, desktops and serverswill appeal to many customers who want a single Linux platform and service provider.

"I see the growth opportunity for offering unique OEM solutions with Linux not only on the desktop but across the platforms," said Rockhold, whose firm began deploying Linux on notebooks two years ago and launched its new Linux desktop and server practice two months ago.

Underlying his enthusiasm is the emergence of more advanced, modern Linux desktops. Novell's three-month-old SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10), for example, offers many of the features upcoming in Vista: XGL support for 3-D effects, more advanced GUIs and OpenOffice 2.0 and an integrated "Beagle" search engine.

And Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Desktop, which is now in beta testing and due to ship in early 2007, offers OpenOffice 2.0, Firefox 1.5, better digital camera integration and Accelerated Indirect GLX for 3-D desktop effects.

Still, the decade-old dream of Linux-based desktops hasn't taken hold in the same way Linux has on the server due to a variety of factors ranging from the lack of native Linux applications to incompatibility with Microsoft environments and end-user resistance to change, observers note.

Despite many attempts by Linux desktop vendors, including Linspire, Ubuntu and Xandros, Microsoft's Windows and Office desktop remains the de facto standard for business users and system builders. Gartner Group claims Linux's share of the desktop market on a worldwide basis remains at just less than 2 percent.
 
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