Red Hat small business desktops available in Australia early 2008

Stan Beer
Thursday, 09 August 2007 15:14

Business IT - Open Source

Linux vendor Red Hat's first Linux desktop product aimed at small businesses will be available to system builders in Australia at the beginning of 2008, according to a senior executive at the company.

Gerry Riveros, product marketing manager, client solutions, at Red Hat, told iTWire that the company's new Global Desktop Linux will be available to all of Intel's top tiers of system builders.

"Global Desktop will be made available to Intel's system builders in stages, starting with the largest ones first.  So I would think that Australian system builders will have access to it at the beginning of the year," said Mr Riveros.

According to Mr Riveros, Red Hat's new Linux desktop release will be easy to implement by small businesses with no Linux expertise in house and will require less security knowledge than for Microsoft Windows.

"Linux desktop technology has evolved to the point where you don't need a guru beyond what you would need to deploy any other operating system or technology," said Mr Riveros.

"Additionally, since Linux comes with a more secure preconfiguration and environment out-of-the-box, what you need to know about securing your network from threats is less than what you need to know for Windows.  And finally, this is why we partnered with Intel's channel of system builders.  They are local to these customers and are there to help them should they have a question."

Mr Riveros believes that Global Desktop will be an easy transition for Windows users based on his experience with new Red Hat staff.

"At Red Hat, every new employee is given a Linux laptop on their second day of employment and told that this is the tool they will use to get their work done. The majority of our non-technical employees have been trained on Windows and in their previous employments only used Windows machines. Next, they receive a 2-hour familiarization tour of the Linux desktop and then are set loose to do their job," he said.

"We've never had anyone go back to their manager demanding Windows because they can't get their work done with their Linux desktop.  In fact, we've seen the adjustment period to be a matter of a few days and then the employee is as productive with their Linux desktop as they were at their old job with a Windows machine.

"A lot of work has been done to provide a great and intuitive user experience for Linux desktops.  Global Desktop inherits all of this work and will be easy for users to pick up and use."