By Brian Proffitt
Managing Editor
Amongst the news about SCO discovery (more code, less filling),
Red Hat’s upcoming Enterprise Linux 4 (a Valentines Day present),
and whether or not OSDL is about ready to re-write the Linux kernel
(they aren’t), was the news that Mandrakesoft was instituting a new
partner program in the United States.
To this, I will say non-parenthetically, it’s about time!
Anyone who has tried to tackle the US operating system market
has usually run smack into the Great Wall of Redmond, turned
around, and gone home. That is, until Linux came along. By being
free and open, Linux has managed to ride around the wall like the
Maginot Line. This does not mean the battle has been won, mind you,
but Linux has made a lot more progress than some other operating
systems against Microsoft and UNIX.
To accomplish this, Linux has been flung onto every platform you
can think of. Desktop? Got it. Server? You betcha. Supercomputer?
Molest me not with that pocket calculator stuff.
We all know the technical prowess of Linux, and how well it can
performs on various platforms. Oddly, though, from the commercial
standpoint, Linux is not as diversely offered, especially in terms
of customer base.
For instance, the Holy Grail for commercial Linux is the
enterprise, that mystical behemoth that describes what I
affectionately call the mongo-corporations, Definitions of the
enterprise vary, but one constant remains throughout: enterprise
companies have lots o’ money and buy lots o’ computers. So it is
little wonder that Red Hat, Mandrakesoft, and Novell all covet the
enterprise customers. There be the money, after all.
Another commercial outlet for Linux is the desktop. There, you
have lots more potential customers, but each one is not going to
contribute much to your bottom line, at least individually. So,
while commercial desktop offerings have more flash and greater
grass-roots appeal, not very many distros sell specifically to this
market. Linspire and Xandros are two of the more successful desktop
ventures, for those keeping score at home.
There are, of course, the commercial offerings on high-end
clusters and supercomputers and low-end embedded space. Here lies
the greatest diversity of Linux’s commercial success. But these
spaces are very specialized, and I want to focus on them at another
time.
So, for “traditional” distros, we have two big targets: the
enterprise and the desktop, with not much in between. Which is why
I applaud the new partner program from Mandrakesoft that
specifically targets the small- to medium-sized businesses
(SMBs).
In a nutshell, here’s what the program is -about: Mandrakesoft
is going to start working with smaller US IT consultancies who want
to start providing Linux services to their customers. It seems that
while many IT consultants in the US have some Linux skills to offer
their clients, they may not have the wherewithall or knowledge to
effectively market Linux. Or, perhaps the consultancy has little to
no Linux skills at all. The Mandrakesoft partner program can help
both kinds of firms.
According to Program Manager Maria Winslow, the partner program
will offer documentation, marketing, and some training to program
members to increase their Linux knowledge and marketing savvy.
Members will then be able to effectively answer requests for Linux
from their customers, or present Linux as a new solution to
customers who need it but might not have considered Linux
previously.
The beauty of this kind of program, Winslow explained, is that
instead of trying to seek out and identify SMB customers on their
own, Mandrakesoft’s partnerships get the company connected to
customers know to the IT consultants. In this way, both sides of
the partnership win.
Along with materials for marketing, members of the program will
be able to sell specialized software offerings, known as the
Dedicated Server series, Winslow explained. Right now, that
includes a file server and an e-mail gateway. Winslow stated that
there are plans to add Web server and firewall products later. She
also said that the company is considering offering these products
as pre-installed boxes.
On the training side, Mandrakesoft has developed Linux
Professional Institute-approved courseware that will be used by any
partner that needs it. Thus far, Winslow said, they are not
planning on any sort of certifications for partners.
This plan is an exciting one, because it addresses a market
niche that I think has more potential than the enterprise or the
personal desktop. Enterprises have big IT budgets, usually, so they
have the luxury of shopping around for their products and services.
On the opposite end, PC users don’t typically think about the
“Windows tax,” because it’s built into the price point.
But SMBs, who need more than the PC user and have a lot less
money than the enterprise user, strongly need another OS
alternative. SMBs don’t have a lot of money to throw at IT
solutions, and may often settle for less licenses or less support
than they really need in order to make ends meet. (Or they may be
*cough!* fudging some licenses. Which would be, er, wrong.) For
them, Linux is an ideal solution, and I think it’s high time a
commercial distro went after this market.
Personally, I hope more Linux companies jump into this arena.
Small to medium-sized businesses need to have all the IT power they
can get, and any time Linux can be used that power will certainly
grow.