Mandrakesoft Makes Its Business Linux Move

On Tuesday, popular French Linux vendor Mandrakesoft renewed its efforts to enter the business Linux space with the announcement that it will be releasing two new enterprise Linux distributions: Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop.

"These products have received specific development and testing efforts to make them as fit as possible for use in a business environment," said Gaël Duval, Mandrakesofts co-founder.

Specifically, "the new Corporate Server is meant to facilitate deployment through its auto-installation and easy configuration capabilities. It can be used for any kind of server tasks, from LDAP [Lightweight Directory Access Protocol] to Web [serving]," Duval said.

As for the Corporate Desktop, it "was designed for the coming wave of Linux on the desktop. The problem of over-abounding, sometimes immature open-source software has been solved in this product through careful testing and screening of software applications. That makes Corporate Desktop immediately usable," Duval said.

In addition, the enterprise products come with a longer development cycle of 12 to 18 months between releases and a five-year maintenance span. In the past, Mandrakesofts main focus was to make Linux available to the largest number of users, and it had very short development cycles.

Mandrakesoft first tried to enter the business market with the first version of Corporate Server in September 2000, followed by a second version in early 2003. The Corporate Desktop is Mandrakesofts first effort at a business Linux desktop.

According to the Paris-based company, both products have been designed to make deployment as simple, fast and painless as possible. So it is that both feature extensive hardware auto-detection and numerous configuration wizards to get users started as quickly as possible.

At the same time, the user-friendly interface is designed to open system internals to administrators. In addition, the new Linux distributions come with Mandrake-specific administration tools: DrakPark for network system maintenance and Mandrakeonline Pro to keep systems up to date with the latest patches.

Both distributions are based on the Linux 2.6 kernel. The server also comes with Samba 3 for Windows-style file serving and Apache 2 for Web serving.

The Corporate Desktop is designed to be a natural match to the Corporate Server, but it can work with other servers in a heterogeneous environment. For example, with Drakauth, the distributions authentication system, administrators can use not only such popular Linux authentication and directory systems as LDAP, but also Microsoft Corp.s Active Directory.

The x86 and x86 65-bit compatible distributions also come with Citrix and NX thin clients on the desktop and NoMachine NX Server, for thin-client support, and CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Server Edition, for Windows program compatibility.

Both distributions come with support plans. With the Standard option, which starts at $369.90, users get one year of Web support and one month of phone support. At the Premium level, which costs $829.90, users get a year of Web support and some phone support for a year.

Mandrakesoft provides technical assistance in both French and English from its Paris and Los Angles offices. Desktop pricing hasnt been set yet.

Next Page: Can Mandrakesoft finally make an impact on the business market?