Canonical

Can Ubuntu Linux become a Windows killer?

There have been a number of articles written recently talking about Windows 7 being a Linux killer.

• Windows 7 as “Linux killer”? How times have changed!
• Windows 7: Microsoft’s Linux killer?
• Windows 7 The Linux killer and Ubuntu Going Mainstream

Linux was thought to be a player in the netbook business, but a Spring 2009 NPD Group study shows that Windows has a 90% share of the netbook OS market. It seems silly to be talking about any Windows desktop operating system as a Linux killer. There are so few Linux client operating systems deployed compared to Windows that this discussion is off target, especially because it appears that Windows 7 is an improvement over Windows Vista.

Today, about 25 or 26 paid Windows client operating systems are shipped for each paid Linux client shipped, according to IDC. Paid Windows client operating systems have more than 90% market share while Mac and Linux make up most of the remaining share. The market share lead that Windows has over Linux is not expected to change much for the foreseeable future.

There are about 30 times as many paid Windows client operating systems in use as there are paid Linux client operating systems deployed. And there are about 13 times as many non-paid Windows client operating systems in use as there are non-paid Linux clients.
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Ubuntu 9.04 release focus on user experience and data center needs

Canonical, the sponsor of Ubuntu, today announced the simultaneous release of Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition and the Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition, available for download on Thursday, April 23, 2009, and the Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix, available on Thursday April 30, 2009.

With the new 9.04 server edition, Canonical has worked to extend the range of enabled servers, with 45 of the most popular mid-range servers from IBM, Dell and Sun and HP tested in the Canonical labs.
Ubuntu 9.04 Server edition will preview Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC). Ubuntu is the first commercially-supported distribution to enable businesses to build cloud environments inside their firewalls. With Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition, organizations can explore the benefits of cloud computing without the data or security issues associated with moving data to an external cloud provider. Following a successful beta program, Ubuntu Server Edition 9.04 will also be fully available on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Mark Shuttleworth, CEO, Canonical shared some of the server improvements in Ubuntu 9.04 Server edition include substantial improvements in some key applications for mail and other common infrastructure requirements.

“There has been an extension of work around suspend and resume of servers,” said Shuttleworth. “Amazon’s EC2 elastic computing meme will penetrate deeply into the enterprise. And organizations will want that same elastic computing internally, along with the power saving capability. The best method is suspending or resuming. Through effective use of elastic computing, we think we can greatly improve the energy savings in the data center.”

Shuttleworth referred to the concept of cloud computing as “the new hotness,” and says that Canonical has chosen to give it a very specific focus in this release. An image of Ubuntu 9.04 is now on EC2, so anyone interested in prototyping on Ubuntu 9.04 can fire it up on EC2. Shuttleworth shared that Canonical has a firm commitment to continue to release updates in the cloud. A description of other Ubuntu virtualization efforts and a more detailed report on the current position of Ubuntu in the data center and enterprise IT environment was published on SearchDataCenter.com at the beginning of April.

Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition improves user experience
Mark Zimmerman, CTO, Canonical explained some of the new features in Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition include a reduction in start-up time from 45 seconds to 25 seconds. According to Zimmerman, the release also includes an improved notification subsystem, which is the first in a series of design-led improvements.

“We are really working on improving the intrinsic experience of using Ubuntu on the desktop,” explained Zimmerman. “The notification subsystem has a standardized way of displaying [notices], that adds to the polished feel of the desktop.”

In addition, the desktop version of Ubuntu 9.04 features OpenOffice.org 3.0. This release of OpenOffice includes a lot of compatibility between Microsoft Office suite products that can make the user experience more seamless and easy, and wasn’t available at the last Ubuntu Desktop Edition release.

Data shows down economy spurs Linux adoption

A Novell-sponsored IDC survey reveals a surge in the acquisition of Linux driven by the worldwide recession. More than half of the IT executives surveyed are planning to accelerate Linux adoption in 2009. If that’s not positive enough, more than 72% of respondents reported that they are either actively evaluating or have already decided to increase their adoption of Linux on the server in 2009, with more than 68% making the same claim for the desktop. The study surveyed more than 300 senior IT executives spanning manufacturing, financial services, and retail industries across the globe, as well as government agencies. The survey results are a good update to the fall 2008 Purchasing Intentions survey we conducted that hinted the economy would impact Linux adoption.

Linux has been gaining ground in the enterprise, as was seen with Red Hat’s impressive results from 2008. We said back in January that open source would do well in a down economy, and now there’s data to back up the prediction.

In the IDC survey, the leading reason given for migrating to Linux was an interest in lowering ongoing support costs. More than 40% of survey participants said they plan to deploy additional workloads on Linux over the next 12-24 months and 49% indicated Linux will be their primary server platform within five years. (Is anyone else surprised by that number?) Among those hesitant to adopt Linux, lack of application support and poor interoperability with Windows and other environments was cited as the primary concern, indicating the key areas that need more work. Companies have made great strides where interoperability is concerned, but clearly more work needs to be done before Linux can gain more ground. We have covered Red Hat’s recent interoperability agreement with Microsoft, Canonical’s effort’s toward certification on HP servers, and reviewed the leadership of Novell in interoperability efforts. But, clearly the market needs more assurance that Linux will meet their critical business needs.

Key to the recent interoperability efforts has been virtualization. This is a good move according to the survey results as nearly half of respondents stated that moving to virtualization is accelerating their adoption of Linux. A notably high, 88% of those surveyed plan to evaluate, deploy or increase their use of virtualization software within Linux operating systems over the next 12-24 months. An increase in virtualization uptake was seen in our 2008 Purchasing Intentions survey, which revealed that virtualization interest was influencing server purchases.

In our recent newsletter, we asked readers to tell us what’s missing from all of these agreements. We encourage you to share your thoughts here. What would you like to see in terms of specific application support or capabilities? What’s missing from the interoperability landscape?

Ubuntu gains another win in major server certification quest

The little distribution that could, Ubuntu Linux Server Edition supported by Canonical Ltd., announced that it was on its way to achieving certification on Hewlett-Packard’s ProLiant x86 servers. According to Canonical’s blog post on the topic:

The certification means HP will list Ubuntu as a supported operating system and verify the work undertaken by Canonical to ensure full certified compatibility. Furthermore both companies are fully co-operating at the engineering level to provide full underlying confidence for HP customers using the certified servers.

HP won’t be shipping servers with Ubuntu preloaded. But, as Canonical marketing manager Gerry Carr explained to me, the certification will provide HP customers with assurance that if they sideload Ubuntu, it will work with specific information regarding performance. This news follows Canonical’s announcement of user survey results that revealed an uptick in adoption of the server-based operating system in a variety of mission-critical Web and database applications. The surveyed Ubuntu users shared that they mostly use the OS on assembled servers and tower and desktop PCs.

However, Carr explained that “It appears to be that HP ProLiant is the second most popular [server] brand behind Dell PowerEdge servers. I expect that is consistent across the unknown Ubuntu users out there.”

For an example of who is using Ubuntu, Canonical shared the story of a Chicago-based finance house that runs entirely on Ubuntu server and runs their open and proprietary stack on primarily HP machines, with some Dell in the mix.

In his blog post regarding the announcement, Joe Panettieri of WorksWithU, an Ubuntu dedicated news website, explained the history of Canonical’s Ubuntu Server edition initiative. He shared that a recent site reader survey revealed growing momentum for Ubuntu in the enterprise market. However, the big players (Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SUSE Linux) continue to lead the way in both mind and market share.

Al Gillen, VP in charge of system software research with IDC, echoed this perspective in a statement to Ed Scannell of Information Week:

“In terms of noise level, Ubuntu has been hot lately. But the ecosystem simply isn’t as mature for Ubuntu as it is for Red Hat and SUSE Linux. They do not have the level of application support and data base support, and some other things that you need to be enterprise ready.”

Ubuntu achieved certification on Sun’s x64 servers in early 2008, around the time Canonical released Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

Carr shared that Canonical is working to see Ubuntu certified on all the major manufacturer servers in the next few years. The timing of certification on HP’s servers is unclear, but is underway and Carr expects to see it “sometime soon.”