[TriLUG] Red Hat Returns to Linux Desktop Market

[Magnus Hedemark]

On Tue, 4 May 2004, Frye, Matthew wrote:

> Damn the mail client!
> 
> Anyway, here's the official page
> http://www.redhat.com/software/rhel/desktop/  and a better link
> http://osdir.com/Article572.phtml

I just got back from a seminar hosted by Novell and HP about Novell/SuSE.  
The desktop wars are going to heat up.  While Novell made an easy case for 
Linux on the server, they were spending a LOT of time gunning to replace 
Windows on the desktop.  They did take a few minutes to tear up Red Hat 
and barely mentioned Mandrake with a collective chuckle from the C*O's and 
IT Directors in the room.

They were pitching OpenOffice.org heavily, as well as Red Carpet and the 
Ximian Desktop.  Red Carpet looks like it has come a long way to be a 
strong competitor for RHEN (which itself is a nice admin interface that is 
worth looking at).

My question about file services caught them off guard.  I want a stable & 
secure replacement for NFS that isn't klugey.  I figured Novell would be a 
natural to deliver this.  The marketoids in attendance did not have a 
response other than Novell can serve NFS from its own proprietary 
filesystem.  It's disappointing that there isn't more movement in this 
direction from the Linux heavyweights.  The NFSv4 stuff coming down the 
pike might do it but it's not ready for production yet last time I 
checked.

They had a really AWESOME front end to CUPS that let you pick your 
printers based on a graphical floorplan with printer icon overlays.  This 
might have just been in their Virtual Office product.  Unsure if this is 
in the upcoming SuSE desktop or not.  Like I said, the audience was 
primarily executives so they didn't have a lot of time to go beyond a 
10,000 foot overview.

In any case, yes, the desktop wars are definitely getting underway.