Four Surprises In the Linux Market

The VAR Guy is packing his bags and plans to attend Ubuntu LIVE July 22 in Portland, Oregon. While prepping for the event, he spotted four key developments in the Linux market — including a possible surprise announcement from Hewlett-Packard Co. Here’s the rundown.

4. Sun Microsystems Cares about Desktop Linux: Sure, Ubuntu has a server version but most folks keep a closer eye on its desktop counterpart. Sun’s decision to sponsor the event hints that CEO Jonathan Schwartz continues to preach open source throughout the company — including the desktop. And, not by coincidence, Sun recently announced plans to add more Linux capabilities to the Solaris operating system.

3. SuSE Linux Isn’t Novell’s Only Priority: In fact, Crispin Cowan, director of software engineering at Novell/SuSE, will speak at the conference about AppArmor, a security program that has been ported to Ubuntu.

2. Red Hat Is Missing In Action: Generally speaking, The VAR Guy remains bullish on Red Hat. But the company apparently doesn’t have any guest speakers confirmed for the Ubuntu LIVE conference. That’s foolish. Surely, IT managers want to know how Red Hat servers can potentially integrate with Ubuntu desktops — and vice versa.

1. HP May Make A Major Ubuntu Move: You’ve heard that Dell preinstalls Ubuntu on selected consumer PCs and laptops. Rumors are swirling that Hewlett-Packard will soon follow suit. Bdale Garbee, Hewlett-Packard’s Linux CTO, is scheduled to keynote the Ubuntu LIVE conference on Monday, July 23. This is pure speculation by The VAR Guy, but it’s the perfect stage to announce an Ubuntu initiative at HP.