An Ubuntu Linux veteran has joined Dell as part of the PC giant’s effort to focus on systems management. Ken Drachnik, a former manager at Canonical (promoter of Ubuntu) has joined Dell as director of product marketing for KACE, The VAR Guy has confirmed. Here are the details and the implications for Dell’s systems management strategy.

First, a little background: Drachnik previously helped to market Canonical Landscape — a systems administration tool for Ubuntu servers, desktops, notebooks, mobile devices and Ubuntu in the cloud. But Drachnik joined Dell and the KACE team in July as director of product marketing, he confirms in an email to The VAR Guy.

Dell, you may recall, acquired KACE in early 2010 and launched some next-generation KACE appliances for the channel in May 2010. Drachnik says his new post “builds on my system management expertise.” KACE, he notes, provides system management appliances for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux “so it really was a great fit.” His role will be to staff and build out a product marketing strategy team to help KACE ramp their messaging to the vast Dell sales force.

At the same time, Drachnik continues to speak highly of his time at Canonical. “I was fortunate to work at Canonical and get Landscape started on the path towards offering SMB and enterprise features that would sell,” wrote Drachnik. “They continue to invest in Landscape and augment the desktop and server management capabilities with Cloud specific functionality.  I wish my colleagues there the best of luck going forward.”

Meanwhile, Canonical COO Matt Asay says the company will continue to increase its focus on Landscape.

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