Mandrakesoft Delivers Corporate Server and Desktop Linuxes

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Franco-American commercial Linux distributor Mandrakesoft has been fleshing out its portfolio of Linux offerings throughout 2004, and last week it added two more products to the mix. While some Linux customers want to always be on the cutting edge, others (particularly corporations with large numbers of users) like a platform that is stable for a longer period of time. That's what Mandrakesoft's Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop Linuxes are all about.

The releases of Corporate Server 3.0 and Corporate Desktop 3.0 follow the launch of Mandrakesoft Community 10.1 in September 2004 and Mandrakesoft Official 10.1 a few weeks later, in October 2004. Mandrakesoft is creating Linuxes that, it says, better match the way distinct groups of Linux users want to have their software packaged and have new features delivered.

The Community releases are the bleeding-edge releases, with all of the latest bells and whistles and less of a guarantee that everything has been absolutely stress-tested. The most current support for a new feature, such as last year's introduction of WiFi and Bluetooth protocols, will appear first in the Community release. The Community release is available for free online, and has a nominal price for a CD distribution; it includes minimal tech support.

Within a few months, after all the stress-testing is done and Mandrakesoft has obtained feedback from early Community users, the company spins the CDs for the Official release. This Official release comes in three editions--Discovery, PowerPack, and PowerPack+--which are roughly translated as beginning, intermediate, and expert levels. The feature set on these three Mandrakesoft Official distributions gets larger as you move up the levels, and the price increases from $49.90 for the Discovery edition, $84.90 for the PowerPack edition, and $229.90 for the PowerPack+ edition. All of these versions of Mandrakesoft Linux have full tech support; in fact, that's what the money you pay really goes for, as is the case with Red Hat, Novell, and Turbolinux distributions. Mandrakesoft also has a special edition of the Official 10.1 release specifically for servers and desktops that use the 64-bit memory features of Xeon and Opteron processors. Mandrakelinux Official 10.1 for X86-64, which started shipping in November, is based on the PowerPack implementation of its 32-bit Official release. The 64-bit Official 10.1 costs $129.90, which is a 53 percent premium over the cost of the 32-bit version. The X86-64 release, like the Xeon-64 and Opteron processors, can support legacy 32-bit code.

The new Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop releases are based on the same Official 10.1 code (which is, in turn, based on the Linux 2.6), but they are designed to have a much longer shelf life and maintenance support than the regular Official releases. Specifically, Mandrakesoft is guaranteeing support for Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop for five years. Depending on the licenses customers choose, they can buy this software with either one or three years of maintenance, paid for upfront, and then pay for the remaining four or two years of maintenance on an annual basis. While the Mandrakesoft Community and Official releases will continue coming more or less on an 18-month basis, Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop customers will be able to hold off on an upgrade if they want to sit tight.

Mandrakesoft came up with the Corporate Server idea with the 1.0 release in September 2000, and in the spring of 2003 it launched Corporate Server 2.0. With the launch of Corporate Server 3.0, the company has expanded onto the desktop and is anticipating that Linux will begin taking off on the desktop--in part because of the long support guarantee that the company is offering. Businesses hate to change their desktops every year or two because it is very costly and disruptive. Corporate Server is available in English and French versions for 32-bit and 64-bit X86 platforms, and it comes in two editions. Corporate Server Standard Edition costs $369.90 for a year of unlimited Web support, on a 24/7 basis, and two-day response telephone support for basic Linux functions like Web, print, and file serving; the Premium Edition costs $829.90 and offers an extended scope for Linux feature and application support, including database, security, archiving, and other features. That extended scope also offers one-day turnaround time on the extended support features (but not for the core Linux features, oddly enough, which remain at two-way turnaround).

Corporate Desktop 3.0 includes a sophisticated authentication feature called Drakauthentication, which allows the Linux desktop to log into LDAP or Active Directory (Windows) networks. This software also includes CrossOver Office from Codeweavers, which allows Microsoft's Office suite to run on Linux machines. Corporate Desktop has the Mozilla browser, the Totem media player, the Evolution e-mail client, the Kopete instant messaging client, plus various terminal server clients for linking into Linux and Windows networks. Corporate Desktop runs on 32-bit and 64-bit X86 chips and costs $109.90.