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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth: "I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux desktop."

32 comments

TAGS:business, Linux dekstop, Mark Shuttleworth, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Windows
IT TOPICS:Business Intelligence, Emerging Technology, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Windows & Microsoft

A popular question in desktop circles is "Can anyone make money from the Linux desktop?" Canonical CEO and Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth's answer is "I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux desktop."

Yes, that's right. The man behind what's almost certainly the most popular Linux desktop doesn't think he, or anyone else, can make money from the Linux desktop. Furthermore, he never really has.

In a press call about the October 30th arrival of the next version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 8.10, Shuttleworth said that Canonical has always seen the desktop as a "zero revenue" product.

The point is, Shuttleworth continued, "I've never seen selling shrink-wrapped packages of free software as a workable idea." Instead, Shuttleworth sees "The only way to build business around software is with [added costs] services."

Shuttleworth added that he thinks Microsoft is shifting over to services for revenue as well. He said, "I've heard creditable reports of Microsoft offering XP at no cost to OEMs."

When Microsoft was caught flat-footed by the rise of netbooks, which couldn't run Vista, the company first re-offered Windows XP Home to mini-laptop vendors who were going over to Linux. Then, as it became clear that Vista had failed, Microsoft decided to continue to offer XP Pro to OEMs after all. Now, there's little doubt that Microsoft will keep offering XP until Windows 7 arrives.

It's also worth noting that on the same day that Shuttleworth was saying that the selling of "desktop bits" was no longer a successful business model for Microsoft, Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie was announcing Azure a services-based cloud operating environment. Azure, which will compete with Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), won't be a product, its resources will be sold as a service.

Funny that. It makes me think, yet again, that the smartest man in the open-source business world might well be Shuttleworth.

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Lets all bash the Rich Guy

Submitted by JoshF on May 13, 2009 - 12:05 P.M.

So I read this article and Steven's blog and it seems like alot of people whining because some Mark Shuttleworth has money to throw at Ubuntu. In the past Linux in the user community was relegated to hackers, hobbyists and g33ks, the interfaces were clumsy, pretty much everything required manual installation (can you say yum or apt), plugins were a pain in the ass. There was no way linux could run in a corporate environment, believe me I tried; SUSE, Fedora, Debian. It was less painful to just use Windoze.

So here comes Mark Shuttleworth and he dumps millions into Ubuntu. Creates an user experience that folks on CNet say rivals Windows 7 and Mac Leopard. Brings linux lightyears closer to being a generally adopted user platform and of course the losers in this race are crying foul. Perhaps groups like Mandriva should get a grand vision and go to a VC and get the cash to rival Ubuntu, but right now I do not see a lot of though leadership in the Linux community, save from Canonical. What I mostly see is a bunch of ostriches with their heads in the sands of their own distros.

I have always believed in the free market, if the next guy comes along with funding and can make a better widget, faster and better than you and you go out of business than it is the fate of the market, you only have two choices, keep up or deal with it...

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you got a wrong idea.. so

Submitted by od3n on March 14, 2009 - 4:24 P.M.

you got a wrong idea.. so bad

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its just a minor typo

Submitted by Jan on March 4, 2009 - 3:35 P.M.

Nah, it's just a minor typo. Give the guy some slack. I agree with the "Vista=Failed" thing because windows 7 wouldn't be in the development stage if it was successful.

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not true...

Submitted by collinm on November 15, 2008 - 6:36 P.M.

before novell buy suse...

the majority money of suse was done with suse box selled...

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What a bunch of morons

Submitted by theoldman59 on October 31, 2008 - 10:55 A.M.

So, here we have a person that put his own personal money on the line. He's fought the fight in the real business world for over four years. He's come up against the difficulties of selling something for profit into a free market. (I don't mean free software, I mean a free market system)

After millions of his own money he says he doesn't think anyone can make money competing with free software. Funny how that works.

Now, a bunch of morons that have never put a dime of their own money on the line criticize him for stating the obvious.

Before you criticize too much, perhaps you should make a business go out of Linux Desktop. He does think there's money in the services end, but if I read it correctly, that market is saturated with Red Hat, SUSE and others. In other words the Open Source Model isn't a For Profit model; it's just too difficult to make money at it.

Now before you criticize, go out and invest your own money before you call him a traitor to the cause. Once your own money is on the line you might have a different opinion.

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