Red Hat eyes 10 pc share in the domestic desktop market

BANGALORE: The open sourcetechnologies provider Red Hat is eying a 10 per cent market share in the Indiandesktop computing segment in the next one year. To get a clear entry intothe segment, the company recently launched the latest version (Red Hat 8.0) ofits Linux-based open technology, Bluecurve.Red Hat India director JavedTapia told that theintroduction of Bluecurve was the company''s first serious initiative to gain anentry into the desktop computing space. "We expect to gain a 10 per cent marketshare in the Indian PC segment."The new version combines the best benefitsof multiple graphical user interfaces (GUIs) available on a Linux platform todeliver Bluecurve the easiest and simplest way to unleash the power of PC, hesaid. It integrates leading edge Linux technologies to simplify the traditionalsystems thereby facilitating a smooth Red Hat Linux migration to personal andbusiness computing segments.Tapia said with the new version Linux, Red Hatwould predominantly look at segments like education, government and home. "Weare also in talks with four Indian and multinational OEMs." The company hasalliances with companies like Compaq, Dell, IBM, and Intel.According to arecent IDC study, enterprises that migrated to Linux from RISC/Unix could saveas much as 45 to 80 per cent on their infrastructure costs. For instance;Amazon.com saved $17 million in infrastructure costs during the last quarteralone.Another study conducted by Merrill Lynch found that a large numberof CIOs plan to buy Linux systems this year while another critical mass of CIOsadmitted that Linux is strategic to their enterprise.According to Tapia,Linux became popular among system administrators for its reliability of runningmonths and years without needing to reboot. Red Hat Linux is based on openstandards so it is more easily integrated with other enterprise systems. It runson everything from small embedded devices to large mainframe systems. Thislowers management costs because there''s only one code base to maintain. It alsomakes it easy for developers to write applications for the platform.RedHat Linux often found its way into server rooms because it was cheaper todeploy, but stayed because of its reputation as a stable, reliable operatingsystem, he said.Globally, Red Hat has so far delivered five millionsoftware packages to more than 300,000 Linux servers. The company has a 52 percent marketshare among Linux operating systems.