Red Hat drops consumer Linux desktop

Red Hat's desktop software unit has revealed it won't be launching desktop Linux for the consumer market any time soon.

"We have no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future," the company's Linux Desktop team said.

"As a public, for-profit company, Red Hat must create products and technologies with an eye on the bottom line, and with desktops, this is much harder to do than with servers," it added."The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and some people still perceive that today's Linux desktops simply don't provide a practical alternative."

Instead, Red Hat is focusing on desktop software that works with its server products aimed at businesses and developers.

A product called Red Hat Global Desktop that is targeted specifically at resellers, which focus on emerging markets, has been delayed for almost a year because of business issues. The company hopes to release it "soon", according to its corporate blog.

The company's desktop plans for 2008 and 2009 will centre around Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop and Fedora.

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