Enterprise support instead of a business remix

In the last “Ask Mark” section that occurred on 2001/11/23 our supreme dictator for life showed up for questions (log can be found here) Mr. Shuttleworth mentions “we’re going to do a business desktop remix, because lots of people want a remix without the social bits…”  And I wonder just who wants this business remix?  Are there customers who are actively looking to replace Windows w/ Ubuntu but are just looking for the “social” to be removed?  I would argue we don’t need a new remix of Ubuntu, we need 3rd party support of Ubuntu instead.

Let me explain….

I work w/ businesses every day ranging from 300 client devices to 100K+ client devices and none of them are even thinking about switching to Ubuntu.  In fact there is only 1 customer I’ve talked to all year that is using Ubuntu.  That customer isn’t looking for a remix of Ubuntu, he/she is looking to better manage the devices.  The only Endpoint Management Tool that supports Ubuntu is Canonical’s own Landscape, none of the vendors (HP, IBM, Microsoft, Symantec, Kace) provide support for the product and until that happens I doubt we will see many Enterprises adopt Ubuntu as their desktop of choice.

What do I mean by an Endpoint Management Tool?  I want a product that allows me to deliver software, patches, and images to my device along w/ providing a comprehensive inventory (software and hardware) of all of my devices.  Management won’t let me buy yet another tool to manage the devices or perhaps even migrate to this new operating system so it needs to work w/ what I currently have. Also I want a company to stand behind the product and offer me support. Bonus points for it being completely administrated from a web page.

Let’s take a quick look at what Linux support is out there w/ the top Endpoint Management Vendors I run into contact w/

Vendor	Name of Product	Supported Linux Distributions
Symantec	Altiris Client Management Suite	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (6 before EOY), SUSE Linux 11
Dell (KACE)	Kace Systems Management Appliance	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4, and 5
IBM (Tivoli, Big Fix)	Configuration Manager (?)	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, 5, and 6, SUSE Linux 9, 10, 11
Microsoft	System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)	SCCM 2012 will support Red Hat, SUSE, and Solaris
Canonical	Landscape	Ubuntu
HP	HP IT Management Software (NOTE: Had hard time finding exact information about HP’s product as they have a lot of names

Note:  This is not a complete list of solutions/vendors/etc.  What is listed is based on information from the website from what I could, it might be wrong

So what does that table demonstrate?  We need vendor support before we need a “remix.”  We need one of the other vendors beside Canonical to start supporting Ubuntu in order to grow into the enterprise desktop arena.

Ubuntu and take your device to work

This week I attended through work a presentation about Endpoint Management with a focus around the whole “bring your device to work” megatrend the experts are talking about.  In case you haven’t heard this discussion is all about allowing an end user to purchase or use their own device instead of a corporate device.  Examples given in this presentation are large New York City based banks encouraging people to use their own devices (usually a Mac) as a recruiting tool to help attract top talent.  The presentation focused on how will IT manage these devices (patch, deliver software, track inventory, etc) on a non-corporate device.  In the past someone in IT decided what version of desktop/laptop (either a Dell or an HP) and then decided on an operating system (Microsoft and still for a lot of shops XP).  Now we are seeing a growth of whatever type of device the end user wants (anyone have this at their work?).

The interesting part about the discussion was the focus on Mac and how companies are managing them.  Macs in the corporate environment are growing and growing (heck I moved to one) and companies have to figure out what to do w/ them.  Thankfully the product I consult around (Altiris Client Management Suite) has perhaps the best Mac management outside of Apple. When asked about where the expers see Linux in the corporate world the expert replied it still exists within the walls of the datacenter (whether on premises or off premises in some form of cloud) and it really doesn’t exist in the corporate desktop (at least in the US).

This is a large frustration I have with Ubuntu is that it could focus on the corporate environment and potentially increase market share but instead chooses to focus on TVs and potentially mobile devices.  Canonical could partner with the various Endpoint Management software vendors (Microsoft, IBM, CA, Symantec, Dell, etc.) to support Ubuntu.

When I show up w/ my own laptop running Ubuntu there are certain things I’m required to have or report on including up to date with patches, has up to date antivirus and definitions and is able to be managed by the corporate management solution.  So Canonical, fire up those partnership agreements or whatever is needed and get your operating system supported by more vendors so the corporate desktop market share can grow