CNet’s Matt Asay beat The VAR Guy to the punch — writing a blog about potential Oracle-Ubuntu Linux synergies. Still, the potential Oracle-Ubuntu partnership gets a little sexier when you throw OpenOffice into the mix. Not even Jack, Janet and Chrissy looked this good together in their prime. Here’s why.
First, some background: Ubuntu certainly has momentum on the desktop. But Canonical is evangelizing Ubuntu on servers as well. And that effort requires enterprise software partners, as Matt Asay points out.
What’s Missing
When Ubuntu 9.04 launched in April 2009, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth said Ubuntu’s server edition had been tested on 45 different server configurations from Dell, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and other server suppliers. More recently, Canonical has launched server training through partners like Fast Lane and Bridge Education. And HP in June 2009 began certifying some ProLiant servers to run Ubuntu.
Nice. But Ubuntu still faces an uphill battle across…
1. Servers. Competing against Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SUSE Linux won’t be easy. Last week, Dell insiders told The VAR Guy that Dell has no plans to pre-load Ubuntu Server Edition — even as Dell continues forward with Ubuntu on selected notebooks, netbooks and desktops. Simply put, Ubuntu needs more server sofware ISVs — including Oracle — to attract customers and hardware makers.
2. Desktops: As Windows 7 debuts, the noise around Windows and Mac OS will grow louder again — threatening to push back Linux’s recent desktop gains.
3. Netbooks: Windows 7 is one concern. But the bigger threats to Ubuntu come from the open source community itself. Google Android and Intel Moblin could potentially attract developer and OEM (original equipment manufacturer) attention away from Ubuntu on netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs).
Oracle’s Challenges
Meanwhile, Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux strategy is… um… broken. Or stated more tactfully:
1. CIOs and VARs are not exactly banging on Oracle’s door for Linux. And the Windows Server-SQL Server combination remains a powerful one-two punch for Microsoft.
2. Red Hat is gaining momentum outside of Linux, promoting JBoss middleware against Oracle’s BEA and other middleware offerings. Yes, Red Hat is attacking — and succeeding — in a core Oracle market.
Oracle’s Opportunities
One simple solution: Oracle should partner more closely with Canonical on both the server and the desktop.
On the server, an Oracle-Ubuntu combination could emerge as a popular alternative to Oracle-Red Hat, Oracle-SUSE and SQL Server-Windows.
On desktops, Oracle will likely inherit close ties to the OpenOffice community as part of the Sun Microsystems acquisition:
“Sun continues to sponsor development on OpenOffice.org and is the primary contributor of code to OpenOffice.org.”
Together, Oracle and Canonical could use OpenOffice to achieve some common goals:
1. Further harm Microsoft’s desktop revenue stream.
2. Accelerate Ubuntu’s desktop momentum.
3. Offset any potential desktop gains by Red Hat and Novell.
Hot Speculation
The VAR Guy isn’t suggesting Oracle and Canonical are in discussions about a partnership. Besides, Matt Asay is the guy you need to blame if you think the Oracle-Ubuntu chatter is a waste of time. Matt got this ball rolling. The VAR Guy merely threw a third name (OpenOffice) into the Oracle-Ubuntu chatter.
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Everything that’s being said about Windows 7 was also being said about Vista before it was released—that it had been so long since the previous widely-adopted Windows release (XP) that people would be falling over themselves to upgrade, etc etc. People will not be moving to Windows 7 in droves for the same reason they didn’t move to Vista in droves. Vista wasn’t good enough to persuade them to upgrade, and 7 isn’t enough of an improvement over Vista to make any difference.
We are a Microsoft Gold partner and I would say that Windows 7 definitely has different things being said about it than Vista at the same time. At the same time with Vista we told people to NOT move ahead because of the requirements/performance issue etc. of Vista. (that was a microsoft partner!
Apparently partners did a good job of getting the word out (tonque in cheek) because our service manager likes to point out how even grandma’s that know nothing else about computers KNOW they don’t want Vista when they come into our depot repair center! 
We are quite conservative partner but after extensive testing we are confident Win7 will be a step forward in features, performance & stability. We are beginning to prepare our clients for a move already. They, of course, are ultimately the deciders on what they do.
My attempts to find fault with Win7
http://dynamicssmallbusiness.blogspot.com/search/label/Windows7
Well I too have been testing Windows 7, Looks pretty, has the cute Legacy “Windows needs you permission to perform this task” message. Lovely pretty pictures. Obviously it isn’t the Dog that Vista is.
As a Windows Operating System I’d give it a 10, XP a 9, and I think I’m being generous when I give Vista a 6.
As an Operating System, that is stacking it up against modern Operating Systems, I’d rate Windows 7 at about 6 or 7.
Windows 7 is all too obviously a Legacy OS, just like it’s predecessors, It is a better XP than XP clearly, in that it has a prettier desktop for a start (lovely wallpaper, beautiful photography, I filched it for my own computer), clearly Microsoft have managed to shoehorn a number of modern functions into the aging girl, but clearly she is an aging girl with a face lift, and all of the functions that one has come to expect of a modern operating system are still missing. Things like genuine security, Multiple desktops, Pinnable Windows, Window Shading, genuine ease of use (as opposed to familiarity with the work arounds, which after 30 + years in IT I have), real Multi user functionality.
a Legacy operating system likeWindows has Anti Virus while Modern Operating Systems have Security.
As a sidenote for #1: Have you tried Win7 lately? I’m not really a Windows fan but 7 is very good, incomparable to the Vista abdomination. It’s quick, UI is cleaner and smarter, new taskbar fresh and usable. It will without doubt erase XP *and* Vista from the conscious of the public.
I don’t see how Ubuntu can hold up in the server market as it’s barely usable even on the desktop, getting worse each half year. 8.04 should be stable and relatively flawless now but 9.04 is full of broken or barely-working packages, and comes with an utterly bastardized GNOME. (Installing and using Slackware for example is a deep, fresh breath for me after these candy distros.) Where is the edge here? Support? Or the nice, peaceful logo?
@Andras: The VAR Guy thinks it’s unfair to say Ubuntu is “barely usable” on the desktop, since it seems to be among the most usable Linux desktops in the market.
However, our resident blogger values your opinion and wants to dig a little deeper on this.
Readers: Do you agree with the assertion that the Ubuntu desktop is getting worse instead of better? Thoughts?
@Andras: Regarding Windows 7… The VAR Guy agrees with you. He thinks users are going to like the Windows 7 experience a lot, but he doesn’t anticipate a stampede of Windows 7 upgrades. Instead, businesses and consumers will gradually embrace Windows 7 as part of their normal PC buying cycle.
The VAR Guy:
Do you have a usability study that comes to any statistically valid solutions about the usability of one linux distribution versus another or even a Windows usability to linux distribution specific study? I haven’t run across anything that I could hold up as a valid study.
Without that study available for review, I don’t think anyone can make any credible claims about comparative usability rankings in any form. You can’t even make a valid assertion about two subsequent releases from the same linux distribution.
-jef
I might have been harsh. The Jaunty installation and out-of-the-box experience is fine; but after a few days of usage I realized it was getting really annoying. Used it for more than a month to wait for updates but they did not resolve any bugs that affected me (I do not possess exotic hardware). So the main problem is bugs,bugs,bugs all across the board. To get jobs done daily, that is unacceptable. The reason I questioned its usefulness in a server scenario is that in the case of Ubuntu it is not a fully separate version like Fedora/Red Hat to leave time for problems to settle, so many of these flaws would be present in a production setting for too long.
At a company I used to work with Ubuntu 7.04 shortly after it was released, and I remember the experience smoother (and at the same time more GNOME-like). Feeling the decay of quality and overall impression of the distro ever since.
Home usage, ‘net, video and fun is entirely subjective, universal bug frenzy isn’t.
@Andras: Your constructive criticism is always welcome. Thanks for offering readers some deeper background on your experiences.
-TVG
@Jef: No, The VAR Guy has not read or seen usability studies…