The key differentiator with desktop Linux is having something freely available that is good enough to use. It's called reducing the barriers to actually using it. No enterprise is going to move to anything that is the same as, or slightly inferior to, Windows as it is. They certainly don't want to have to track how many supported desktops they have. It's just too much of a hassle.

Novell is in serious conversations with several leading hardware OEMs about preloading a Linux desktop that will be targeted at broad enterprise use.

You've been talking about this for year, after year, after year about OEMs pre-installing your desktop Linux for the much vaunted enterprise. It hasn't happened, and one is inclined to call a duck a duck.

If we do release SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on a preloaded OEM machine, it will come with the enterprise support that our customers require to run their businesses.

To people running desktops (and throwaway ones at that), support is just something they don't want to pay for. We're not talking about business critical servers or mainframes here. They'd rather pay a license fee and have all their downloads and updates come free with Windows Update for several years, along with the ability to install a tonne of off-the-shelf software – which is what most people are doing now. SLED just doesn't offer anyone anything compelling.

* High disposable income

* Keen knowledge of the industry

* Buy what they want, not what they need

* Willing to spend on principles

They are precisely the sort of people who are happy to publicly flog Novell for even smiling at Microsoft and who see huge Karma and coolness factor in using Ubuntu. They are also the people who will work hard to get their non-techie friends using Ununtu.

All Dell have to do is add a little note to their website saying that if anyone is doing a rollout of more than 100 machines, please call the local sales manager about pre-install of a Linux distro to suit your specialised requirements (probably a customised image with business-specific packages loaded, etc).

With respect to Ubuntu, I am more interested in understanding Novell's product differentiation (features), not target market.

While Novell's long history may be impressive to some, what with the discoving gun powder and all, it is somewhat irrelevant to Novell's current history of shooting itself in the foot (ironic given the gun powder innovations).

To some observers, the success of Ubuntu with its limited resources and lack of proud ancient history would tend to suggest that 23 years of history may not necessarily be relevant in today's world !

Let's face it, Novell wastes more money in a month than Ubuntu ever spent on R&D.

And yet it is Ubuntu that scored this deal with Dell.

I just hope Novell management finds a way to sell more than just its soul to Microsoft, because things don't seem to be moving in Novell's direction.

Is Novell in discussion to sell more than its soul to Microsoft, or should shareholders presume that any benefits from soul selling and legal settlements will be offset by the costs of alienating the Linux community ?

Just curious.

John.

If Ubuntu gets the Desktop market for home users, guess what will be loaded onto enterprise desktop!

Once you get used to synaptic and apt-get, YAST/SAX is like alien.

Don't believe? Put a new Linux user and ask them about port in FreeBSD to get a feel of the idea

Thanks.