Vendors Unveil UnitedLinux

A team of Linux vendors Thursday unveiled UnitedLinux, a unified version of the open-source operating system that is expected to boost its viability in the corporate market.

As previously reported by IDG News Service, Linux operating system makers Caldera International, Conectiva, SuSE Linux AG, and Turbolinux have combined efforts to create a single version of Linux on which each company will standardize its products.

The creation of a single Linux platform will make it easier for businesses, as well as independent hardware and software vendors, to offer services and build products in a standard way, said the companies behind the UnitedLinux. Often, these vendors and enterprise users would have to port applications to meet the requirements of different versions of Linux distribution from different vendors.

Under the partnership, the four companies have collaborated on the development of the UnitedLinux code base. The four partners will each bundle distinct products and services with their respective offerings under their own brands. The first versions of UnitedLinux are expected to be available for purchase in the fourth quarter, the group said.

An Open Coalition

"The development of UnitedLinux is already well under way," said Ransom Love, chief executive officer of Caldera, during a conference call Thursday. Caldera has already merged its engineering team with SuSE's, Love said.

Analysts predicted earlier this week that the partnership was an effort to compete against Linux market leader Red Hat, the missing player in the group that took part in the unveiling. The combined market share of the four companies involved in UnitedLinux, as well as their worldwide reach, could pit the distribution of a standard Linux operating system against Red Hat, said Al Gillen, research director of systems software for research company IDC, in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Caldera, in Lindon, Utah, and Turbolinux, in Brisbane, California, serve the U.S. market as well as Asia Pacific. SuSE, based in Nuremberg, Germany, is positioned to serve Europe, as well as the United States. And, Conectiva, based in Curitiba, Brazil, ships its operating system product in Portuguese, Spanish and English, serving the Latin American market.

UnitedLinux, however, is not a closed effort. The group said Thursday that it is open to new members.

Corporate Entry for Linux?

The standard version of Linux could also propel the open-source operating system on to more corporate desktops and servers, competing against the entrenched leaders such as Unix and Microsoft 's Windows operating system, executives said during the conference call. With vendors standardizing on a single code base, users will be able to get services and technical support from a variety of vendors.

"It will make Linux corporate computing a worldwide reality," said Gerhard Burtscher, chief executive officer of SuSE, during the conference call.

A number of hardware and software vendors pledged support for UnitedLinux Thursday. IBM will support the operating system in many of its key Linux hardware and software products, the company said in a statement. Other vendors backing the announcement include SAP AG, Fujitsu Siemens Computers BV, Hewlett-Packard, Computer Associates International, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel

The operating system will be supported by IBM's eServer product line, as well as AMD's 32-bit and 64-bit platforms and Intel's x86 32-bit and Itanium processor family platforms. Test versions of the software are expected to circulate in the second and third quarters.

UnitedLinux will support the industry standards LSB (Linux Standard Base), Li18nux and GB18030. It will be available in English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.