The VAR Guy

Canonical’s CEO crown officially transitioned from Mark Shuttleworth to Jane Silber on March 1. During a phone discussion with The VAR Guy yesterday, Silber shared her top priorities for Canonical and Ubuntu. She also disclosed plans to make another key executive hire at Canonical. And, Silber shared some views on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), the cloud — and the potential sale of Linux rival Novell to a hedge fund. Here’s a recap of the discussion…

Each day, the drumbeat for Ubuntu Server Edition is getting slightly louder. In recent weeks, a growing list of ISVs (independent software vendors) has vowed to support Canonical’s Linux server operating system. The latest example involves Mailspect launching antispam and email archiving solutions for Ubuntu Server.

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, is considering a new version of its Landscape remote management tool that may appeal to solutions providers and service providers. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Canonical has launched Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Services, an effort to help customers build and support private clouds. The announcement, leveraging Ubuntu Server Edition, caught The VAR Guy’s attention for two key reasons.

The VAR Guy often crows about his successful predictions. But some of his blog posts — including a few about emerging open source solutions like Google Android and Ubuntu Server Edition — missed the mark badly in 2008. Time for The VAR Guy to take a break from holiday meals. Instead, he needs to eat some crow for these five open source statements that were off target in 2008.

On desktops and Netbooks, it has been a stellar year for Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux distribution. But on the server, Ubuntu continues to face long-term challenges in terms of application and vendor support. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Businesses don’t buy operating systems. They buy applications. With that fact in mind, Canonical is gradually expanding its online store for Ubuntu Linux applications. It’s a smart move — but solutions providers will need to keep their expectations for the store under control. Here’s why.

Some small businesses and start-ups are standardizing on Ubuntu Server Edition because it’s a low-cost alternative to Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 and 2008. The VAR Guy wonders: Could a bigger trend be coming? Will hundreds — or thousands — of small businesses make the move to Ubuntu Server Edition?

The next time somebody tells you Ubuntu Linux is just for the desktop, check out Egressive Limited, a solutions provider in New Zealand that’s gaining traction in the Ubuntu Server market. In fact, all of Egressive’s support customers now have Ubuntu servers at the center of their networks, and Egressive uses Ubuntu exclusively as the company’s hosting system. Is this part of a bigger “hidden” trend? The VAR Guy sure seems to think so. Here’s why.