Will Sun’s Mad Hatter lend Linux a crown?

BANGALORE: "Mad Hatter is 50% cheaper than Windows" , "easier licensing terms", shouts Sun from the rooftops. Sun’s Mad Hatter is a desktop Linux environment, which has a GUI that bears a striking resemblance to Windows and runs on various Open source offerings such as Mozilla browser and Star Office. It is hoping that cost benefits and easier licensing terms will wean away more people from Windows. The penetration of Linux for the desktop is less than 2% in India and Sun is hoping that the timing is perfect — as Microsoft plans to end support to older versions of Windows. The ‘per-employee’ licensing plan is a bait that Sun is offering to cost-conscious enterprises who are "tired" of Micrsoft’s licensing and upgrade policies.

However, apart from the stranglehold of Microsoft in the desktop segment, Sun also has to contend with established player - Red Hat. "We have 50% of market share worldwide, and I can safely say that we have over 80% of market share in India", says Javed Tapia, Country Head, Red Hat India. Is Mad Hatter a threat to Red Hat, which incidentally has an alliance with Sun to promote its Enterprise Linux? ". They don’t have our kind of momentum. But I see the desktop Linux market growing exponentially in India and there’s certainly place for one more offering", says Tapia.

It was predicted that Mad Hatter would have Sun’s own "flavor" of Linux. However, Sun’s ally SuSE has contributed Linux code to Mad Hatter and Sun may have well made changes to the Linux kernel. Is it OK to tinker with Linux core? "Well, they have been in the business of selling their own operating systems (Solaris) and they are in the best position to make changes. Any innovation is welcome", says Linux commentator, Gopi Garge.

Sun is free to put whatever code it wants into the Linux kernel since Sun had struck a deal with AT&T in 1993 and bought complete ownership over UNIX. In a print advertisement in an international paper, Sun had trumpeted the fact that they are the only Linux vendor to be totally unaffected by SCO’s lawsuit.

Sun is clear that it will not throw out Solaris. Although it will promote Linux "on Intel, where it runs best", it will continue to bet on Solaris for Intel-based servers and on the traditional Sun SPARC systems. With Mad Hatter, Sun hopes to pull the rug from under Microsoft feet and also quash the popular notion that Linux may make Sun irrelevant.