[Jason]

Red Hat has dismissed speculation that it was planning a consumer desktop version of Linux to compete with Windows, saying it is focused on enterprise systems and would not be able to make such a product profitably, due to Microsoft's dominance.

"We have no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future," Red Hat's Desktop Team said in a blog report. "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. 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."

Analysts and commentators have backed the decision, agreeing that Red Hat is not a consumer company, and getting users to pay for a Linux desktop would be an uphill struggle when Windows is usually bundled with the hardware. "Red Hat has always been about the corporate market, the enterprise market, the server market," said ZDNet.com blogger Dana Blankenhorn. "[Red Hat's] efforts on the desktop have been, essentially, throwaways."

Many, many open source users will be disappointed by this news, especially with Linux now becoming a regular choice in emerging markets as the popularity of low-cost laptops continue to grow.

[bushwhacker]

Well, we still have Ubuntu around to use too.