Climb every desktop

It’s taken a while, but Linux is finally making its presence felt in the Indian desktop PC market. Red Hat and Novell (SUSE Linux) have both reported an uptick in sales of desktop Linux software. Red Hat India says it has three lakh Linux desktop installations in India with the likes of Breach Candy Hospital (Mumbai), Central Excise (Kochi) and Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission (Madhya Pradesh) using its desktop software. Novell’s SUSE Linux has found favour with the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, Geojit Securities, and Kumara Guru College of Technology (Coimbatore). ELX Linux, an Indian company, has its own Linux distribution, and its product, ELX Biz Desktop, has 60,000 installations to its credit at clients such as Andhra Pradesh Tribunal Court (Hyderabad), Axiom Energy Conversion and Nokia Enterprise Solutions (Hyderabad).

A fresh approach

While Linux has spread its wings in the recent past, the desktop market has remained a tough nut to crack. Factors such as the lack of applications and hardware support have restricted the penguin to servers for the greater part.

In the past, Linux vendors touted a Linux desktop as a complete replacement to Windows. That strategy failed. Now these vendors are targeting specific verticals that promise volumes and are concentrating on delivering the features that are required by a regular user. As most PC users are primarily engaged in creating documents or accessing e-mail, Linux distribution vendors are hoping that a Linux desktop will be good enough. Most of these vendors bundle in applications such as the OpenOffice.org open source office productivity suite, the Evolution e-mail client, Acrobat Reader and Xpdf for reading PDFs, and the Mozilla Web browser.

Says Javed Tapia, director, Red Hat India, “The education and government sector show huge potential for Linux desktop adoption.” He says that the company’s Linux desktop product has been adopted in the e-governance and education segments by district courts, schools and colleges. In Madhya Pradesh, where 6,000 schools come under the government’s Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha Mission, Red Hat has the mandate to roll out Linux desktops to 2,000 schools in the first phase of an ongoing deployment. Education is a key market for vendors, as students who get acquainted with desktop Linux are more likely to use Linux in the workplace or at home when they grow up.

The company is also targeting sectors such as the front office in the hospitality industry. A case in point is the South Park Hotel, Thiruvanathapuram. Says Dhilip George, Systems Manager of South Park Hotels, “We are using Red Hat Linux 9 as our desktop environment on fifteen computers today.” The cost savings are tremendous, leading the hotel to look at using Linux as the desktop environment at the company’s other properties as well.

Similarly, Novell is positioning SUSE Linux for specific industry verticals over and above government and education. Says Ashit Panjwani, National Manager, Alliances and Marketing, Onward Novell Software India, “Any organisation where computers are used only for a specific application is a good candidate for Linux desktop adoption.” Panjwani gives the example of a call centre agent who requires only specific applications to do his daily work. Agrees Pranav Kumar, Research Director (APAC) of Gartner, “Government and education are ahead of the enterprise segment in terms of experimenting with Linux on the desktop. Organisations that run limited applications on desktop—such as an industry-specific application—are also candidates for shifting to Linux.”

Meanwhile, ELX Linux is also eyeing government and educational institutions.

Says Abhi Datt, founder of the company, “The government is the biggest opportunity for a huge volume play.” ELX has already sewed up a deal with an educational institution in Orissa for 1,500 licences, and is on the verge of bagging a deal with a state-owned enterprise in Andhra Pradesh for 30,000 installations.

“We are working with various central and state government organisations to build greater awareness about the benefits of deploying a flexible per-citizen pricing policy in delivering a stable and secure computing environment, comments K P Unnikrishnan, Marketing Director, Sun Microsystems India. Sun’s offering in the Linux desktop market is the Java Desktop system (JDS) that’s based on Novell’s SUSE Linux.

The Linux desktop comes bundled with a number of applications that can work out to be an effective option for large organisations. For individual users, the Red Hat retail desktop product is priced at Rs 2,500 per user per year. For large enterprises, Red Hat offers various support options ranging from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500, depending on the support requirements of customers deploying Linux desktops. Novell charges Rs 3,500 per year per user, and Rs 5,250 per user for two years. It is bundling in the Novell iFolder that lets users automate the backup of local files on to a server or other workstation, and the Citrix ICA client that permits access to Windows applications that seem to run locally on the Novell Linux Desktop but execute on a remote server.

Try before you buy

We expect Tally to be a catalyst for driving other application vendors on to the Linux platform Javed Tapia Director Red Hat India

Hyderabad-based ELX Linux charges Rs 500 per installation. Unlike Red Hat and SUSE that earn revenues from support services, ELX does not permit the copying of its ELX BizDesk software. Its revenues come from sales of the product and from support services. Again, unlike the strategies of other Linux vendors which have percolated down from the server to the desktop, ELX concentrated on the desktop and then scaled up. The company focussed on creating drivers for popular hardware, and regularly took feedback to incorporate new features. To start with, it was an uphill task to persuade organisations to buy Linux desktops as most CIOs felt that there would be huge problems in terms of hardware support and ease of use. To get around this, ELX started giving away evaluation copies. For instance, in the case of the Andhra Pradesh Tribunal Court, the company installed BizDesk on select machines. After checking out the software for a week, users came to the conclusion that there were no problems in using it.

Says Siviah Naidu, Registrar of the court, “The acquisition cost is the most attractive feature of using a Linux-based desktop product such as BizDesk. Once the initial training is completed, the gains are tremendous.” The court has procured 35 licences of BizDesk. Unlike the product approach taken by vendors marketing other desktop OSs, most Linux vendors earn their revenues from support services. This is a big opportunity as many Indian organisations are running home-grown applications. All of the leading Linux vendors are attempting to help organisations port their in-house applications on to Linux. Companies which have a huge number of computers are keen to pursue this model as the cost savings in continuing the use of existing applications will pay for the investment being made towards desktop Linux.

Any organisation where computers are used only for a specific application is a good candidate for Linux Ashit Panjwani National Manager Alliances & Marketing Onward Novell Software India

Comments Srinivasu Kakumani, IT Manager, Infrastructure and Systems, Nokia Enterprise Solutions (Hyderabad), “Our costs were shooting up on account of vendors’ licencing policies. We have adopted BizDesk as it suits our requirements at an affordable price without compromising on features.” Initially the organisation purchased six copies of BizDesk and tested it for a fortnight. Kakumani says that he was pleasantly surprised by the product’s hardware detection capabilities as it automatically detected printers and even the latest network cards. Encouraged by this, the organisation placed an order for 60 licences.

Linux vendors are also looking to take advantage of security concerns. In large organisations, administrators typically want fine-grained control of desktop set-ups. For example, software updates for Red Hat Desktop can be provided using a Red Hat Network Proxy Server or the Red Hat Network Satellite Server. Similarly, Novell Linux Desktop can be deployed and configured using the company’s ZENworks Linux management tool.

Comments Panjwani, “The Linux kernel for the desktop product is the same as that for the enterprise server product. This shows the level of security available for the desktop.” In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, the improvements in security come from an optional security-enhanced kernel modification that helps system administrators get rid of privileges (which are loaded by default) and prevent root user hacks. Additionally, the kernel can keep a check on applications that attempt to claim a privilege higher than what they are authorised for. Also, as all Linux vendors offer support for thin clients, existing Windows applications can co-exist with Linux.

Paying upfront vs subscriptions

While desktop Linux is gaining ground in the Indian government and education sectors, many enterprises are still not comfortable with the subscription model adopted by Linux vendors, and most Indian CIOs prefer paying upfront. Says Abhijit Das, Manager, Platform Strategy, Microsoft India, “Over the long term, a Linux desktop can prove to be more expensive than a Windows one if you include the support costs.” He says that in cities where Linux skills are not available, an end-user has no choice but to go back to the Linux vendor. As most OEMs only bundle Linux with no promises of support, application support can prove to be expensive. Finally, there is the question of hardware support.

While the list of applications on the Linux desktop is growing, it has not reached the stage where any and every enterprise will be completely comfortable deploying Linux desktops. Linux vendors are working at two levels to address these concerns. At the software application level, they are working with Indian ISVs to port their applications on to Linux. For example, Red Hat is working with Indian vendors such as Tally Solutions, Edurite Technologies, IL&FS Education & Technology Services and Corazio Software. Tally, the most popular accounting package in India, is available on Linux today.

Comments Tapia of Red Hat, “Applications will drive the adoption of Linux on the desktop. We expect Tally to be a catalyst for driving other application vendors on to the Linux platform.” Another ISV, IL&FS Education, is working on porting educational applications on Linux.

On the issue of hardware support, Linux vendors say that as Linux is relatively new to the desktop space, it will take time for the OS to recognise every hardware device. For example, Red Hat had a problem with a client whose legacy dot-matrix printer was not recognised by the application. After Red Hat succeeded in creating a driver for the printer, the client finally decided to go in for a Linux desktop.

Hardware device support is getting better, with initiatives such as the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) in Fedora Core 3 that is used for discovering storage, networking, digital cameras and printers.

A disturbing trend is that while many PC vendors are bundling Linux instead of Microsoft, resellers at the lower-end of the value chain sometimes replace Linux with a pirated copy of Microsoft Windows XP. Comments Kumar of Gartner, “This is indeed happening in the market. However, the problem is greater in the SOHO or SMB segment than in the enterprise.”

For Linux vendors who have been used to selling servers, the huge desktop game and expected subscription revenues are a big opportunity. While Linux on the desktop clearly has a long way to go, it is getting closer to reality.

srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com