Linux on the Desktop: Is the Market Too Tough?

In what surely came as a blow to many Linux aficionados, Red Hat (NYSE: RHT)
announced Wednesday that it will not develop a desktop implementation
of the operating system for the consumer market anytime soon.

"We have no plans to create a traditional
desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future," the
company wrote in a post on its blog, citing market pressures as its
reason.

"The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and
some people still perceive that today's Linux desktops simply don't
provide a practical alternative," the company explained. "Building a
sustainable business around the Linux desktop is tough, and history is
littered with example efforts that have either failed outright, are
stalled or are run as charities."

Alternate Focus

Red Hat is one of the largest distributors of commercial Linux implementations, though it faces many competitors, including Mandriva, Ubuntu and Linspire .

Indeed, "technical developments that have become available over the
past year or two are accelerating the spread of the Linux Desktop," Red
Hat said.

Rather than working on a traditional desktop implementation,
however, Red Hat plans to focus its desktop attention on Enterprise
Desktop Linux, Fedora and Red Hat Global desktop over the course of
2008 and 2009, the company said.

"This is probably a good move," Gerhard Mack, a Montreal-based
consultant and Slashdot blogger, told LinuxInsider. "It makes sense for
them to concentrate on what they're good at and leave the bleeding edge
for people willing to take that risk."

'Chicken and Egg Proposition'

Linux is doing "extremely well" at the foundation level with its server operating systems, Laura DiDio, an analyst with Yankee Group, told LinuxInsider. "It has matured and really come of age, it is reliable, and it offers great performance," she said.

On the desktop, however, "it's more of a user-dictated phenomenon,"
DiDio added. "At the application level, users need a reason to switch,
and the fact of the matter is, on the desktop it's either a Windows
world or a Mac world. Why should users switch if they like what they
have?"

The lifeblood of the desktop operating system is going to be the
third-party applications that are written for the desktop platform, she
added.

"If you're a Linux or open source vendor, you've got to time the
market exactly -- you don't want to be too far ahead and you don't want
to be behind," she explained. "It's a chicken and egg proposition."

Hybrid Approach

Third-party application developers only have finite money for
research and development, she added, "so they have to really pick and
choose. Before they decide to allocate development dollars and manpower
resources to building an application for a particular platform such as
Linux on the desktop, they have to make sure there's demand."

What's common these days among application developers is a hybrid
approach, in which they build applications that can run on a Linux
server but offer the same look and feel as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) products at a lower cost, DiDio noted.

"I'm not anti-Linux by any means, but I do think Linux on the
desktop is still very much a niche market because of the entrenched
application landscape for both Microsoft and Macintosh," DiDio
concluded. "I don't think Linux on the desktop is dead, I just don't
think it's going to have the same level of adoption and success in the
near term as server-based Linux.

"It's a really tough market right now," she said. "I think Red Hat's decision was a purely economic one."

'I'm Not Totally Shocked'

Red Hat has already diverted some of its focus and attention from
Fedora, its community Linux, so "I'm not totally shocked" by this
announcement, Jay Lyman, an analyst with the 451 group, told
LinuxInsider. "This isn't the first time they've said, 'we're really
not that interested in the desktop.'"

However, is the market really too tough?

"Look at Ubuntu, which has continued to lead in desktop Linux,"
Lyman pointed out. "They've done it by making Linux easier and sexier,
while Fedora is much more technically and server oriented. It doesn't
have the same consumer and mainstream appeal."

In addition, a number of market factors now at work may actually improve the market for desktop Linux, he added.

Smaller Devices

"Just watch the subnotebook and netbook category, because I think
that's a huge boon for Linux," he explained. "It was significant last
year when Ubuntu got preinstalled on some Dell computers, but I think
in the long run these smaller devices will be even more significant."

The trouble Microsoft Vista is having could also spur enterprises to
look more closely at the idea of switching to Linux, Lyman added.

Looking forward, then, "I think it's going to be a long haul for
Linux," Lyman concluded, "but with these other categories of devices
and the enterprise opportunity because of Vista, there are a few things
here that are going to change how tough it is."

http://www.technewsworld.com

No SUSE or RedHat consumer Linux OK for Ed Tech

Several outlets have reported that both Red Hat and Novell will not
plan to market or develop versions of their Linux distributions for the
consumer desktop. Both companies have cited limited opportunities in
this market due to domination of a particular brand.

My first reaction was disappointment. Competition is a very good
thing and to have two major Linux players decide that it’s not even
worth trying in the consumer market is a bit disheartening. However, I
remembered a comment that Dana Blankenhorn recently made on his blog, “My kid hates Linux too! (so what?)”:

What young Mr. Dawson hates is “desktop Linux” and he is
right to do so. Most desktop Linux software is applications, serious
stuff. Serious as homework…Still, what Mr. Dawson is doing, as a high
school computer administrator, makes perfect sense. The best way to
make certain a school system can only do homework is by making sure
that’s all it can do.

Linux is good for that. Homework, that is. Do your homework. Is your homework done?

When we’re wearing our Ed Tech hats, we’re not in the consumer
market. We’re in the Enterprise market, whee Red Hat and Novell
continue to develop and innovate. Through their Fedora and OpenSUSE
products, we still have access to solid operating systems that are very
good at getting work done for free.

As Dana Blankenhorn also pointed out,
Red Hat did not cede this market to Microsoft, but rather to Canonical,
whose user-friendly Ubuntu distribution has focused on desktop Linux
from the beginning.

So no worries for us open source junkies. Linux is alive and well,
market differentiation is just as necessary as competition, and we’re
all going to be using MIDs running Linux in 3 years anyway. OK, that
last piece is a bit of a stretch. However, Red Hat’s announcement is
hardly the end of competition for our business on the Ed Tech desktop.

http://education.zdnet.com/

Microsoft Preparing for Spring Xbox Live Update

BLOG - A new Xbox 360 system update has been released containing code to ‘prepare for future growth of the service’.

“Sometime
over the next few hours when you sign in to Xbox Live you’ll receive a
prompt to accept this mandatory update,” writes Xbox blogger Major Nelson.
“This update contains code to ‘prepare for future growth of the
service.’ There are no other changes or enhancements in this update…in
other words no new features. The next obvious question you’ll have is
about the spring update. At this point we have nothing to announce, and
the moment there is information to share I will do so.”

We
don’t know what Microsoft has up its sleeve yet for its spring update
but it may need to be something good. While Xbox Live has always been
way ahead of the competition, you get the feeling Sony and Nintendo are
going to be closing the gap during 2008. Sony’s readying its own movie
and TV (and probably music) download service for launch on the
PlayStation Network during 2008, according to marketing bigwig Peter Dille,
and promising to finally enable in-game access to XMB features, while
Nintendo’s WiiWare original games download service will certainly be
interesting. Ok, Xbox 360 already has pretty much all of the online
features that PS3 and Wii will offer in due course, but that’s no
reason to sit back and take it easy. PlayStation Home could also prove
a trump card for Sony, and the firm’s European division is rumored to be announcing a Home launch date at a press invite-only event early next month.

Major
Nelson has also revealed that Xbox Live will be offline for routine
maintenance on Monday April 21 from 0200-1000 Pacific time (if you’re
in a different time zone you can check local times here).

“As
a result, the ‘My Xbox’ section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and
the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you won’t be able to post.)
The remainder of Xbox.com will be available. This is for maintenance,
there are no new features that will appear on your Xbox 360 console or
Xbox.com when the service comes back online. This is server maintenance
only.”

Incase you didn’t get that, there will be no new features added.

http://www.next-gen.biz/

Red Hat Drops Plans For Consumer Desktop Linux

Red Hat said it has dropped plans, disclosed
last year, to develop a version of the Linux operating system for
consumer PCs -- in part because of Microsoft's dominance over the
market.

"The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and
some people still perceive that today's Linux desktops simply don't
provide a practical alternative," Red Hat officials said in a blog post Wednesday.

"Building a sustainable business around the Linux desktop is tough, and
history is littered with example efforts that have either failed
outright, are stalled, or are run as charities," they said.

Linux commands only about 1.2% of the desktop market in the United States, according to research group Gartner.

Red Hat said, however, that it would continue to develop its Enterprise Linux desktop.

It also said it has no plans to abandon its Red Hat Global
Desktop program. Under RHGD, Red Hat is developing a slimmed-down
Linux-based desktop OS designed for low-cost PCs in emerging markets
such as Brazil, Russia, China, and India.

Red Hat said it had originally hoped to ship RHGD within a few
months, but the company has now backed away from a firm timeline. "The
desktop business model is tough, so we want to be prepared before
delivering a product to the emerging markets," the company said on its
blog.

Indeed, Microsoft is also looking to capture those markets,
which are expected to provide the bulk of the computing industry's
growth in the years ahead. Redmond earlier this month announced that it
would extend the life of Windows XP -- but only for low-cost systems
not capable of running Windows Vista.

http://www.informationweek.com/

Technorati Tags: Red Hat , Linux

Nokia rolls out plans for facility in Kirkland

When it bought mobile media-sharing startup Twango last year, Nokia
said it would use the Redmond company as a base to expand its presence
in the Seattle area. The Finnish wireless giant wasn't kidding.

The company, the world's largest handset maker, disclosed plans
Thursday for a major research and development facility that it is
planning to open this summer in Kirkland, taking the first two floors
of a building being remodeled in the Park Place shopping and office
complex.

The 25,000-square-foot space has room for up to 125 employees,
signaling Nokia's intentions to tap the region's pool of wireless and
software talent. It will also have a distinctly Nordic feel, with an
interior featuring natural woods and bold colors.

"This is going to be a Nokia world-class facility," said Serena
Glover, a Twango co-founder who is now director of entertainment and
communities at Nokia.

It's a spectacular surge for Twango, which had 10 employees working
from Glover's Redmond basement when it sold to Espoo, Finland-based
Nokia last summer. At the time Nokia planned to bring five engineers
from Finland and hire five more, bringing the team to 20.

Now Glover, a nine-year Microsoft veteran, is leading a group of 51
building online entertainment and community services that are a key
component of Nokia's online media portal, called Ovi.

It may take several years to fill the Kirkland offices, which will
also house some Nokia salespeople in the area, but Glover said the
company is serious about its plans to leverage the area's expertise.

"We're the beachhead now in Seattle, and Nokia has recognized Seattle as a key market," she said.

Twango's service, now called Share, pits Ovi against
online-photo-sharing communities such as Yahoo's Flickr and Google's
Picasa, but Glover said Nokia's advantages include its huge user base
and its technology for handling and sharing digital media on mobile
devices.

Another milestone is coming in early summer, when the
Twango-developed photo-sharing application is expected to be preloaded
for the first time on phones, starting with the upcoming Nokia N78.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/

Nokia shares fall despite profit hike

Nokia, the world's leading cellphone maker, posted first quarter
results Thursday that missed analyst forecasts, sending its share price
tumbling.

Nokia shares closed with a loss of 13.51 per cent at
18.12 euros, their lowest level in a year, on the Helsinki stock
exchange in Finland.

Net profit for the January-March period rose
25 per cent to $1.96 billion from the same quarter a year ago, the
company said. Sales during the quarter jumped 28 per cent, which fell
short of expectations of 12.74 billion euros, according to analysts.

http://www.canada.com/

Technorati Tags: Nokia

Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony tout NPD numbers

With the release today of its March video game industry sales
report, NPD has provided fodder for just about anyone who wants to read
the numbers the way they want. Or trumpet them.

For example, in an e-mail from Nintendo, I learned that, according
to NPD, "In March, Nintendo again defined industry momentum in both
home and portable video game sales."

In other words, Nintendo's sales of 720,000 Wiis topped console
sales. And Nintendo also dug around in NPD's report and discovered that
it could also tout that it had the best-selling game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which sold 2.7 million copies in the month.

At the same time, Microsoft weighed in with its own celebratory e-mail,
which begins by stating that, according to NPD, "Consumers continue to
make the ultimate vote for Xbox 360 as the console of choice."

Its rationale: That consumers have spent more on Xboxes, $9.4 billion for its entire lifecycle, than on "other game consoles."

So, we've got Nintendo saying it "defined industry momentum" and Microsoft arguing that gamers cast the "ultimate vote" for it.

And this is proof positive, of course, that numbers can be manipulated any way one wants.

Unless you're Sony, that is. I didn't see an e-mail or a press
release about the PlayStation 3's March performance, either in my inbox
or on the official PlayStation Web site. And the way I read the
numbers, there's good reason for that: The PS3 was only the
fifth-best-selling console in March--after the Wii, Nintendo's DS,
Sony's PlayStation Portable, and the Xbox 360. In fact, the PS3 only
barely outsold Sony's PlayStation 2.

I think it's very clear that all these companies are going to
posture and fluff their tail feathers and try to elbow each other out
of the way--month after month into perpetuity. And because NPD--the
leader in gathering industry sales numbers--and others put out so many different metrics, there's always something for everybody to brag about. Well, almost always.

Update: I got an email from Sony after this story was published
trumpeting the PlayStation 3's 98 percent sales growth from the same
period a year earlier.

http://www.news.com/

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, NPD