Canonical To VARs: 11% of U.S. Businesses Use Ubuntu Linux
In an effort to rally solutions providers around Ubuntu Linux, Canonical is telling resellers that 11 percent of U.S. businesses already run Ubuntu. That’s impressive, but when will VARs truly jump on the Ubuntu bandwagon? Here are some clues from The VAR Guy.
For more than a year, Canonical has been piecing together a global channel of partners, distributors and solutions providers. Much of the effort started during Ubuntu Live, a mid-2007 conference in Portland, Oregon. At the time, Canonical executives described how the company was developing training centers to help get IT pros acclimated to Ubuntu.
Fast forward to the present day, and Canonical’s partner program remains in its infancy. The VAR Guy recently spoke with five solutions providers listed on Canonical’s web site, and three of them conceded they had done no business with Canonical so far in 2008. Ouch.
Canonical is hoping to change that by bolstering Ubuntu Server Edition’s support among ISVs (independent software vendors). As more ISVs rally around Ubuntu, more server hardware makers and resellers will promote Ubuntu, asserted Canonical VP Malcolm Yates during a chat at LinuxWorld Expo. The VAR Guy certainly agrees with that reasoning.
When The VAR Guy toured Canonical’s LinuxWorld Expo booth, he noticed some marketing materials especially prepared for solutions providers. One handout noted that:
“Around 11 percent of businesses in the US are using Ubuntu according to a recent IDC report.”
Impressive. But perhaps a tiny bit misleading? Many of those businesses run Ubuntu as their development or testing environments, relying instead on Unix, Red Hat, Novell and Windows Server for production environments.
Still, growing ISV interest in Ubuntu may stir demand for Ubuntu in the channel, The VAR Guy believes. In that handout for solutions providers, Canonical noted that the company is:
“…constantly increasing the number of products that are built and certified to run on Ubuntu.”
A sample list of ISVs included:
- Alfresco
- Centrify
- EnterpriseDB
- IBM DB2
- IBM Domino Server
- IBM Lotus Notes
- IBM WebSphere
- Ingres
- Likewise
- MySQL
- Openbravo
- Open-Xchange
- Parallels
- Qumranet
- SugarCRM
- Userful
- VMware ESX Server
- VMware Server
- Zarafa
- Zimbra
- Zmanda
That’s not the longest ISV list in the world. But it’s a start. With any luck, VARs will follow ISVs into the Ubuntu market.
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But perhaps a tiny bit misleading? Many of those businesses run Ubuntu as their development or testing environments,
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There is nothing wrong with what he said.
Microsoft does say they have 90% of the desktop market, but is this not misleading.
Half of that is **development or testing environments, **=read pirated software, which I don’t consider “market”, as there is not paid for, nor is it serviceble
The VAR Guy didn’t say Canonical misstated the facts. But stats are easy to interpret in multiple ways. For instance, The VAR Guy doubts anyone would claim that Ubuntu is running on 11 percent of desktops and servers in the US. And Canonical didn’t make that type of claim … though the IDC figure can be misinterpreted in such a way by some folks.
Once again, we see that Ubuntu is all hype and no substance. A business would be better off sticking to what Ubuntu is a repackage of — Debian. At least Debian developers don’t misrepresent their distro. With Debian, you know what you’re really getting.
JG: The VAR Guy doesn’t necessarily agree. Many (though not all) corporate customers want a business brand associated with open source solutions, whether its Red Hat, Novell … or now Canonical/Ubuntu.
Typical “research” provider bs. IDC will say anything for anyone who will pay them. They’re easier than the strippers in Vegas, right VAR guy?
Strippers? Vegas? The VAR Guy doesn’t partake… nor could he afford to.
At our multi-site company we use Ubuntu server for Samba files servers, rsnync backup servers, and a Postgres database server (Postgres). We chose Ubuntu over SuSE and Windows because it offers less downtime and easy administration. These are real production servers – so yes companies are really using Ubuntu for actual production.
Bruce: Good to hear from a real-world Ubuntu Server Edition user. You certainly aren’t alone. Here are some quick survey results highlighting how Ubuntu Server Edition customers are using the operating system.
I have 2 clients that are using Ubuntu Server in a production environment as KVM virtuals. They seem to work well so far. I say that as both have only been up for less than 6 months. The irony is the Host engine for the virtuals are Centos5.
Ubuntu’s issue in my mind is not the technology but business risk mitigation. Red Hat ‘got it’ after a long run proving they won’t be disappearing anytime soon. Canonical from what I can see has not taken that issue to heart. Any business wanting to shift risk via a contract would probably consider RH first.
JohnMc: Thanks for the info. The VAR guy agrees: Most folks will consider Red Hat Linux first. It’s far more established on the server.
But Canonical will have a few victories. Similar to Microsoft’s move from the desktop to the server in the 1990s, The VAR Guy expects Canonical to make the same type of move — though on a much smaller scale — with Ubuntu Linux.
Our research institution (National Botanic Garden of Belgium) is currently converting its servers to Ubuntu. Already four are moved, including a public image server (prototype, see http://193.190.116.5/img/BR0/000/006/064/891/ ).
.
Since 1993, we have a long experience with Linux (from Yggdrasil to SuSE, RedHat and Scientific Linux) and after 2 years of Ubuntu testings, we are now converting our servers.
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Regards, Alain
I have been using Kubuntu on all my laptops at home for almost 3 years and love it. But I dont think Ubuntu will catch up with Redhat anytime soon in the enterprise market or even come closer to it because,
— They don’t have any decent cluster(HA) solution like this(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Cluster_Suite)
— They don’t have anything like Freeipa(www.freeipa.org) coming up for cetralized management and authentication in an enterprise environment.
— Their virtualization implementation is buggy like hell and doesn’t have any decent GUI front end like libvirt of RedHat
Just go to et.redhat.com and see what brilliant technologies Redhat has in pipe line. Ubuntu has a lot of improvements in desktop and thats why they have a lot of adoption in that space. But enterprise, NO way. Atleast for anytime in the near future. Free availability is not enough to push it in the enterprise.
RedHat Cluster Suite in Ubuntu (main):
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/redhat-cluster-suite
Something like FreeIPA coming up:
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/identity-management
LibVirt in Ubuntu (main):
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libvirt
gt;Similar to Microsoft’s move from the desktop to the server in
gt;the 1990s, The VAR Guy expects Canonical to make the same type
gt;of move — though on a much smaller scale — with Ubuntu Linux.
With the exact same problems when turning a desktop OS into a Server: buggy code and focus on features and release often instead of stability.
I mention this, because I run all my servers on Debian and use (K)ubuntu on my laptop and some workstations and comparing it to Debian, I find it much more unstable and buggy. Kernel panics, random program crashes, a thing I have never seen on Debian.
I would never dream of runing Ubuntu on a server, because I expect to garner only problems, instead of benefits.
Or can somebody enlighten me, what are the benefits of running Ubuntu on a Server compared to Debian? Ubuntu has always been very strong in the frontend and GUIs. Now, which GUIs do exist in Ubuntu that are relevant for a server setup?
Different distros are focused on different plattforms, as Debian is focused on the server, Ubuntu is on the desktop.
We (based in New Zealand) run all of our hosting infrastructure, desktops and laptops, and scores of customer machines on Ubuntu (and sometimes Ubuntu hypervisors with Ubuntu VMs…). Don’t see any good reason to run anything else. The expertise cross-pollinates around the company as well. The trend seems clear to us.
@Nidal,
I’m writing this message on an Ubuntu Hardy VM running on an Ubuntu Hardy system via libvirt (virt-manager)… I’m not sure what you’re talking about regarding virtualisation flakiness… We also use Xen and VirtualBox (we no longer see a need for VMWare, although that works, too) on Ubuntu… Seems pretty solid to us.
Hi Folks: I’m happy to see satisfied Ubuntu Server Edition users on this site. If anyone would care to be interviewed for case studies, please contact me. The editorial pieces will likely run on The VAR Guy’s sister site — Works With U, the independent guide to Ubuntu Linux.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Joe Panettieri
Editorial Director
Nine Lives Media Inc.
joe [at] ninelivesmediainc.com
Hi NidalIsWrong/Dave Lane !
gt; RedHat Cluster Suite in Ubuntu (main):
gt; https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/redhat-cluster-suite
Have you ever tried to use this Sir ? I had tried once and it was buggy like hell(not the latest one of course !). Where on redhat it has been there for a very long time and with latest one, it has really matured to a point where it can be used in production for mission critical uses.
gt; Something like FreeIPA coming up:
gt; https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/identity-management
COMING UP right? but Freeipa has come up and development is very fast. The current version is very stable and can be used for centralized authentication perfectly. They are planning to release the version 2 in a couple of months or so and it will have even group policy editing ! it will be a total AD replacement. What about ubuntu identity-management ? if I am not mistaken its nowhere near to that.
gt; LibVirt in Ubuntu (main):
gt; https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libvirt
Regarding libvirt, I should have been clearer in my post. Actually ubuntu doesnt have anything like virt-manager GUI of redhat atleast default(Correct me if I am wrong in this.) .Also my stand on virtualization especially XEN (have not tried others much) on ubuntu is same. Its not matured and buggy. On redhat , you can do 95 % of the work with a GUI and setup virtual instances very quickly. Can you say the same about ubuntu XEN ? Don’t take my word, Please do one thing. Install RHEL/CentOS 5.2 on a machine and try to setup a virtual instance of the same on it with XEN and virt-manager. Then install K(u)buntu hardy and try to setup a virtual instance of the same on it. See the difference by yourself(I have done this many times and felt it). Just go through ubuntu forums XEN posts and see how much problems people face on the same.
Let me repeat, Ubuntu is very good for desktops/laptops and I will continue to use it and recommend it for everyone out there. But until and unless the above mentioned technologies are available and matured on ubuntu, its not going to satisfy most of the server side users. Also redhat seems to have a better vision and focus regarding enterprise requirement (the same way ubuntu has a better vision and focus regarding desktop) and et.redhat.com is a proof for this. Just go through the projects hosted there and see the PROGRESS they have made on the same. I always go through ubuntu launchpad and see the progress of the enterprise projects there. I have to say its not at all great. For e.g their enterprise firewall project.
Varguy I consistently enjoy your razor sharp insight. =) I have had many discussions with the Ubuntu community and Canonical regarding the strategic direction of the Ubuntu server efforts. They are finally putting more energy and marketing muscle behind these efforts. Proper marketing, improved features/functionality, community outreach/education and partner relationships will surely mean growth for Ubuntu server. Lets be honest that is a tough market with some venerable players with strong products.
Sadly, Ubuntu still isn’t know for its server product. Truth is it started as a community driven desktop distro with the focus on bug #1 focuses on desktop dominance. Actually I gave a presentation at the Florida Linux Expo on Ubuntu server and you wouldn’t believe how many knew so little about it. I actually heard things like, “Ubuntu has a server?” =P http://www.evolutionaryit.com/node/17
Personally I see Ubuntu server garnering much more of this market in the future. If we use the marker of the current success on the desktop there should be a bright future for it on the server. =
Joseph: The VAR Guy suspects you’re highly intelligent, given your fine taste in blogs.
Rewind to 1993. Most of the established world was laughing at Microsoft’s Windows NT Advanced Server efforts. Critics said the would didn’t need another server OS. But Microsoft lined up ISVs and resellers for the low-cost general-purpose OS, and NT Server eventually caught on.
Fast forward to 2008. The world is saying we don’t need another server OS, and desktop servers don’t ever move to the server. Oh no? The VAR Guy disagrees. While Novell and Red Hat pound away with enterprise messaging, Canonical has the opportunity to sneak onto departmental servers. Canonical doesn’t have MSFT’s marketing dollars. But a community of fanatics will surely help Canonical’s cause.
This is going to be a multi-year effort. No quick wins. Just lots of hard work.
I use Ubuntu Servers all over our company as VM Servers, Virtual Machines, Terminal Servers, Routers/Firewalls, you name it. (we use Ubuntu Desktops too) They seem perfectly stable, with 8.04 server implemented I seem to sit around at my desk a lot waiting for somebody to call about trying to highlight text or something obnoxious like that. (today it was somebody accidentally removing a panel in gnome… I know I should lock that but I don’t have the heart after cutting all their text messaging… but I digress)
I never feel limited at all by Ubuntu Server, in fact I find it usually has great performance. There’s also great stuff out there like e-box that basically lets you fire up an AD replacement with only a few commands post Ubuntu Server install. I understand not everyone wants to be a command line guru and they’d rather have a gui, but once you learn the command line, you won’t really want to go back for most of those mundane tasks.
I agree that Red Hat and Suse have some areas they are beating Ubuntu in, and things like FreeIPA are massively cool. However, they fall short in places too (try snagging things from the repos from… say… Asia… nightmare… not so with Ubuntu there are repos everywhere). I think Ubuntu will keep growing in the 10-300 employee businesses and NGO areas where it seems to shine.