Sponsored by
Sun Hosting

Sponsored by
Montreal Server Colocation

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

June 6, 2008

As it does every year, Red Hat is preparing itself for its Annual Red Hat Summit. This year, it is being held in Boston and starts June 18. Among some of the many topics that will be discussed at the event will be middleware, SaaS (Software as a Service) and, of course, server virtualization.

In the past few days, some of our readers have emailed us in letting us know what they think are new trends developing at Red Hat. Here are a few of them:

Linux on Appliances
The growing overall popularity of network-centric open source products from Untangle, Groundwork Open Source and others have now manifested themselves and things appear to be moving at an accelerated pace for those companies. However, how is Red Hat attempting to serve the appliance market? Also, how can system vendors and integrators as well as hardware companies cash in on this new trend?

There could be some clues during an appliance-centric session scheduled for June 18, the actual kick-off day of the Red Hat Summit.

Red Hat on Laptops
Red Hat has often times publicly stated that the company isn’t launching a consumer desktop initiative. But that doesn’t mean Red Hat is ignoring the corporate desktop and laptop markets either. Red Hat’s Richard Hughes will host a session on Laptop Power Management, which will show attendees how to make batteries last longer and how to make suspend work successfully in a modern Linux desktop.

That session promises to be interesting as well, since we might learn a bit more on how Red Hat wants to achieve this. It will also be held on June 18 as well.

Red Hat Managed Services
The company hinted on May 13 that it plans to more aggressively work with hosting providers as well as managed service providers in the hosting segment. During the conference, some expect Red Hat to quietly tell channel partners more about this strategy.

Of course, it will be interesting to see just to what extent Red Hat will go in that direction, since the hosting industry is now getting competitive as ever, and there will probably be many ears listening carefully and watching every move Red Hat will be doing during that session.

The Red Hat Exchange
Known as Red Hat Exchange, the company’s online software store launched with a lot of publicity in 2007. It was supposed to serve as an Amazon.com of sorts that would allow Linux users to acquire a range of open source applications from about 10 or 12 software providers.

However, how is The Red Hat Exchange actually performing in these tougher times? Generally speaking, most people will agree that last year was a better year than 2008, at least as far as business economics in the U.S. are concerned.

Microsoft vs IBM on the Desktop
Most will agree that Microsoft has largely won that one-sided war in the 1990s. By the same token, most will also agree that IBM is a very Pro-Linux company. But is IBM now wisely reaching out to Linux and open source developers and partners to aid its desktop cause?

IBM’s John Walicki will be on hand June 19 to describe customer case studies involving the IBM Open Collaboration Client Solution. It is hoped that Walicki will describe how that effort relates to Lotus Symphony, the productivity suite alternative to Microsoft Office.

Update: Just after we posted this article, a reader sent us this: "Does anybody else find it ironic that Red Hat is hosting their summit just a few miles from Novell’s headquarters? This is really interesting. We will have to see what this entails."

Source: Linux News.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

ADVERTISERS:
Linux News Today.org is read by over 450,000 people involved in the field of Linux application development, professional Web hosting services, Linux security, Linux Web development, etc. Inquire about our reasonable advertising rates on our news website. One of our advertising representatives will be in touch with you. Simply email us to learn about our ad rates and how we can help drive relevant traffic to your website. Advertising space is limited.