April 17th, 2008
Red Hat's right move
Red Hat isn’t going any further into the market for desktop Linux.
Good. Right. No surprise. Excellent choice.
But not for the reason supposed. Microsoft did not chase Red Hat out of desktop Linux.
Ubuntu did.
Red Hat can’t wave the white flag in a fight it never engaged in. Red Hat has always been about the corporate market, the enterprise market, the server market. Its “efforts” on the desktop have been, essentially, throwaways.
But Dell liked them, you say? Exactly. This is like saying Pat Boone rocks.
I don’t know why this needs repeating. Linux is not like Windows. It’s not one company. It’s an ecosystem. Everyone does what they’re best at, and that’s how it works.
Anyone who has read anything about open source for any length of time understands Ubuntu’s commitment to the desktop, and its dominance of that portion of the Linux market.
This is not to say there is a ginormous opportunity in desktop Linux at all. My guess is the age of the desktop itself is fading. Laptops are desktops, the iPhone is the Apple II of a new world, and that’s where the future of clients lies.
Linux has quite a presence there. Linux is very much in that fight. Red Hat isn’t but Linux is. Just as Red Hat wasn’t really in the desktop fight.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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