Businesses are catching on to Ubuntu, Canonical’s Linux distribution. The latest example: Gameloft, a major mobile games developer, has moved more than 1,000 desktops to Ubuntu, according to a source who reached out to The VAR Guy. But Gameloft isn’t alone. The VAR Guy’s research is tracking hundreds of companies moving to Ubuntu. Here’s the scoop.
According to The VAR Guy’s source, Gameloft‘s entire quality assurance department — about half of the company — has switched over to Ubuntu.
“It’s been a pretty big deployment, well over 1000 desktops and it’s been a huge success,” crows the source. “Ubuntu does the same job [as Windows] for zero cash. The most painful thing about the change over was moving to Thunderbird from Outlook. No one has batted an eyelid about moving to Gnome.”
In fact, the Ubuntu deployment actually involves more than 2,000 desktops, according to another source close to Gameloft.
Ubuntu Gets Down to Business
Gameloft’s move to Ubuntu is noteworthy for several reasons. First, Gameloft is publicly held and its stock is traded on the Paris Stock Exchange, according to Wikipedia. In other words, Ubuntu has pushed beyond the hacker crowd and is now gaining traction in profit-driven businesses.
Second, Gameloft has nearly 4,000 employees — placing its somewhere between a midsize and large enterprise. Gameloft has been profitable since 2003, and sales are growing 25 to 30 percent annually, according to Wikipedia. Translation: Big Business is starting to take Ubuntu seriously.
Third, Gameloft creates games for mobile devices. And cranking out all that code requires a stable development environment. Hello, Ubuntu.
Tracking Ubuntu In 1,000 Companies
Gameloft isn’t alone in its move to Ubuntu. The VAR Guy is tracking hundreds of companies as they move to Ubuntu. The research effort is called the Works With U 1,000.
Brace yourself for a shameless but informative plug: WorksWithU.com, the independent guide to Ubuntu, is The VAR Guy’s sister site. Anyone is free to participate in the ongoing Works With U 1000 survey.
So far, more than 250 companies have participated in the survey — and the survey will continue until Works With U collects data from 1,000 companies.
Will Ubuntu rule the world? Certainly not. But will Ubuntu carve out a healthy niche for itself on business desktops and servers? It’s already happening, folks.
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That’s pretty nice, and as this is a company that makes software, probably means the ball is starting to roll faster now.
Vadim: Agreed. Big win for Ubuntu. But The VAR Guy needs to explore an important sub-plot — can Canonical turn a profit with its business model? Millions of people are lining up to use Ubuntu, but does that mean money will flow in Canonical’s direction?
Being a software publisher now using an OSS platform they may feel compelled to give back. Mayhap just to improve tools that work for them, but who would complain. This would quite possibly result in previously said rolling ball to move even faster as more software is updated and created and new and more innovative features seep through. Particularly for the mobile markets where Gameloft is focused, and Ubuntu is pushing for.
Please, tell the VAR Guy that this are wonderful news!
This ball has been rolling for some time now, but the Microsoft-bribed trade press has been doing a good job of suppressing the news. Desktop Linux is actually a lot bigger than most people think it is. In reality we probably meet or exceed Apple’s market share.
@IGnatius,
Agreed. No one knows how big Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux adoption is… By the time people *do* know, it’ll be too late for MS and Apple to do anything about it… except continue to quote an unfounded figure of <1% until their stock market values auger into the ground…
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“Agreed. Big win for Ubuntu. But The VAR Guy needs to explore an important sub-plot — can Canonical turn a profit with its business model?”
I think they will. With the likes of Red Hat and SuSE businesses need to part with cash to get the enterprise versions of the OS. And then part with some more cash to get more than basic support. And then part with even more cash to get the big muscley enterprise applications. And more cash still to get more than basic support for those applications.
That’s a lot of cash flowing into businesses built on a free foundation.
So far as I understand Canonicals approach. It’s to have a single free version of the OS (configured as Desktop or Server) and then sell enterprise applications as support services along side all of there other support services products.
Which I’m guessing will be attractive not because it’s cheaper. It might not be. I have no idea of the cost involved. But because it’s a simpler model for everybody involved.
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