[CLUE-Talk] FWD: Red Hat 8.0 To Launch This Month With Enhanced Linux Desktop

[hildy at totalspeed.net]

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Message from hildy at totalspeed. net:
Is the new Red Hat 8.0 the way to go for a newbie who wants a desktop with
just an office suite on it?

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<beginstory>
Red Hat 8.0 To Launch This Month With Enhanced Linux Desktop

By Paula Rooney, <i>CRN</i><BR>Raleigh, N.C.
2:40 PM EST Tues., Sept. 17, 2002

As Sun Microsystems prepares to debut its next Sun ONE Desktop on Linux
later this week, Linux leader Red Hat plans to show a more aggressive
desktop bid with Red Hat Linux 8.0.
Red Hat 8.0, which was developed under the code name Limbo, will offer a
spruced-up graphical user interface based on GNOME 2.0 with themes,
improved buttons, scroll bars and menus, and updated applications
including enhanced versions of the Mozilla 1.0.1 browser, Nautilus file
manager, Open Office office suite and a new Evolution e-mail client, Red
Hat said. The company expects to ship the package later this month.
"You will see a corporate desktop and a single-person desktop," said Erik
Troan, senior director of product marketing for Red Hat Linux. "We cleaned
up the look and feel with themes, and Red Hat developed a clean look and
that is unified across KDE or GNOME applications. It will be announced
reasonably soon."
Red Hat has never been a major advocate of Linux on the desktop, but
version 8.0 will demonstrate a change of heart. The Raleigh, N.C.-based
company, whose namesake Linux distribution is the de facto standard in the
United States, maintains Linux is not geared for the typical consumer or
business secretary but does have practical use for a select group of
corporate and technical users, Troan said.
Red Hat won't attempt to unseat Windows and Office, but will aim for more
targeted corporate segments such as call centers at financial institutions
needing only Word and Excel spreadsheet, or a technical audience that uses
one or two productivity applications, he said. Another segment would
include users of technical workstations who can consolidate their high-end
CAD/CAM and EDA applications and productivity applications on one desktop
machine, rather than having separate Unix-based workstations and PCs.
"It's appropriate for certain types of desktops," such as a corporate
desktop running one or two productivity applications or a technical
workstation, where those people don't want to separate machines for
running their Cadence on a Sun [workstation] and another PC to run Windows
or Mac," Troan said. "We think Linux will start gaining traction [on the
desktop] in the next six to 12 months."
Moves by Sun and Red Hat to push Linux on the desktop is good news for
channel partners looking for a change from Microsoft's Windows OS, which
now holds almost 95 percent market share.
Linux solution providers claim that Microsoft's unpopular Licensing 6.0
policies and now serious desktop endorsements by Sun and Red Hat will help
accelerate Linux adoption on the desktop.
While Linux is the fastest-growing operating system on the server side, it
has a mountain to climb on the desktop, where Microsoft now owns more than
93 percent market share. According to IDC, Microsoft's Windows increased
its share of the client operating environment by 1 percent in 2001 from
about 92 percent in 2000. In the same time frame, Apple saw its share
decline to slightly more than 3 percent share, and Linux grew to just less
than 2.5 percent share. All of the other client operating environment
competitors saw their combined share drop to just under 1.5 percent share
in 2001.
<endstory>

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