Ubuntu Means Business: Announces Business Desktop Remix

Ubuntu is making inroads into the enterprise segments in various markets. Recently The Supreme Court of India ordered all courts across India to switch to Ubuntu. Prior to this move the courts across India were using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is mainly targeted at servers. More than 17,000 courts around India will now be switching over to Ubuntu from RHEL.

However, Ubuntu did not have any business editon. The main Ubuntu desktop is targeted at enthusiasts with all the bells and whistles which may not be needed in an enterprise environment.

Mark Shuttleworth agrees and says, "Deployment teams have long been modifying their Ubuntu installs to remove features like music players or games and add components that are a standard part of their business workflow."

The enterprise edition of Ubuntu will make it easier for the IT or system admins to deploy Ubuntu without such modification as Mark mentioned above.

Mark further explains, "This remix takes the most common changes we’ve observed among institutional users and bundles them into one CD which can be installed directly or used as a basis for further customization."

Will the business edition of Ubuntu put it in direct competition with Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Will there be additional features in Ubuntu Business Edition only meant for business users?

Mark clears such doubts, "No secret sauce for customers only; we're not creating a RHEL, we already have an enterprise-quality release cadence called LTS and we like it just the way it is."

Business users will have to register to download the Business Edition of Ubuntu. Canonical will also offer paid support for such business users through Canonical’s Ubuntu Advantage support service.