Red Hat to build 'Global Desktop'
Low cost Linux bundle system to target emerging markets — UPDATE - Red Hat is preparing to release a new "Red Hat Global Desktop" that over time will grow into an online desktop that integrates online services into a client desktop platform.
Context & Ripple Effects
This extends an arc that started at least as far back as ZDNet's November 2005 look at desktop Linux for small business, when Red Hat-style vendors were still probing whether the client side of Linux had a paying market beyond servers. Two years on, Red Hat's answer is a deliberately cheap bundle aimed at buyers where Windows licensing costs bite hardest.
What makes the announcement more than a price play is the confirmed plan to evolve Global Desktop into an online desktop that folds hosted services into the client — positioning the product as a delivery vehicle for Red Hat's subscription economics rather than a one-time shrink-wrapped OS.
First-order effects
- Red Hat gains a low-priced client offering for emerging markets, giving its channel something to sell where full enterprise subscriptions are out of reach and putting a named Linux rival directly against Windows on cost-sensitive desktops.
- Independent software vendors targeting those markets get a defined, supported Red Hat client platform to certify applications against.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft faces renewed price pressure in exactly the segments where its licensing revenue is most volume-dependent, reviving the discount-or-defend choice it has faced from desktop Linux pushes before.
- Rival desktop Linux efforts — community distributions and other commercial vendors chasing the same emerging-market buyers — are forced to differentiate on polish or services rather than price alone once Red Hat's support brand enters the segment.
Third-order effects
- If the online-desktop roadmap holds, the client OS shifts from a standalone license to a front end for hosted services, tying desktop revenue to recurring subscriptions — a structure that favors vendors already running service infrastructure over pure box-software sellers.
- Sustained low-cost bundles in emerging markets could normalize Linux as a first desktop experience for a generation of first-time computer buyers, shifting the long-run installed-base contest away from developed-market upgrade cycles.
The trend: Commercial Linux vendors are extending their server-borne subscription models down into the client desktop, using emerging markets and hosted-service integration as the entry wedge.