LinuxPC is Next on the Agenda for VA Research >BY William Fellows

Computergram International, July 28, 1999

VA Research Inc is determined not to let Caldera Inc, and especially LPO (linux public offering) frontrunner Red Hat Inc, cast a shadow on it and it has been on the road taking soundings about what we'll refer to as the LinuxPC, as well as touting its value-add, hardware systems.

It's going to be tough though. In addition to the IPO, Red Hat yesterday garnered more funding, this time from Novell Inc's internet fund, effectively becoming anointed Novell's Linux directory partner (see separate story). The company has also rolled up an e-commerce product combining Red Hat Linux 6.0, Apache web server, RSA Data Security 128-bit, Netscape roaming module, Squid proxy and cache server, Webalyzer server log and a $25 discount to use with Thawte digital certification. It also has a separate e-commerce directory within its Linux distribution with trial versions of HP, CCVS and MiniVend e-commerce software. Its idea is to capture businesses and ISPs who want to focus on sales rather than their web site, Red Hat says. It's priced from $150.

There's a mixed bag of news on other Linux fronts. The Sun- Netscape alliance (iPlanet) has supposedly nixed putting the forthcoming Netscape Application Server 4.0 up on Linux; after 4.0 it gets souped up with Sun's NetDynamics. From the beginning the alliance had said that Linux was to be an important platform for it. VA Research CEO Larry Augustin claims Sun is getting hurt by Linux at the low-end. The handful of stalwarts left at Mozilla surely can't pick that one up.

Meantime a Japanese source, Business Computer News, used some strange logic to calculate that Tokyo-based Linux distributor Pacific HiTech's TurboLinux Workstation J 4.0 is the best selling operating system in computer stores this month. The report counted sales at 200 retail outlets and claims TurboLinux grabbed a 24.09% share. However it counted Windows 98 upgrades (13.25%); Windows 98 (9.15%), Windows 98 Academic (3.87%), and Windows 98 Academic Upgrade (3.63%) separately. Mac OS 8.5 J won 10.23%, Virtual PC 2.1 (PCDOCS) 6.84%, RedHat J 5.2 2.64%, Vine Linux 1.0 J 2.03% and Virtual PC 2.1 (Win) 1.93%.

However, Augustin claims that the company is getting so many Linux boxes out of the door that it didn't actually need the $25m venture funding it raised last month. It's effectively running on cash. But it will wait to see how the Red Hat IPO goes off - slated for August 10 - until deciding whether to cast its stone to the market.

The 150-person company claims it is doubling sales every quarter and that this month it will have shipped more systems than the entire calendar second quarter. Most sales are one- and two- processor systems to dotcom companies and ISPs. Augustin says the biggest opportunity for Linux is going be IA-64 because of the huge increase in memory and caching it will provide. That's what these companies are crying out for, he claims. It show its product running on a Merced simulator at August's Linux World jamboree.

VA Research has investment from both Intel Corp and Silicon Graphics Inc but can't say how or what it has contributed to SGI's forthcoming Linux servers even though it admits it has been working with SGI on the products. Moreover, it doesn't see SGI's Linux roll-out as a threat. "Let's wait until we see it," said Augustin.

While getting the enterprise functions on to Linux is important, including a journaled file system, failover, high availability, and clustering (for Oracle Parallel Server), that is pretty much a done deal.

The big thing in Linux is the desktop, VA insists. It's what everyone in the community is working towards. It needs ISVs to buy in to really get the opportunity going. What that opportunity would mean in terms of products also remains to be seen. Augustin believes a simple LinuxPC with business/office applications is the grail. Moreover, if the Red Hat and other LPOs go off strong then Linux is likely to strike a chord with US consumers, currently obsessed with stocks, the web and technology.

Linux is a no-brainer for the CAD and workstation ISV community, Augustin believes. Desktop Linux needs a clean user interface before it has a chance and several vendors already have designs. VA says it may show off its work in the area at Linux World, and possibly its implementation of X-Windows too. Augustin also thinks the embedded space is an opportunity given that Unix missed the boat there. The opportunity couldn't be better put by the arch enemy itself: "The Unix phenomenon is scary. It doesn't go away. Linux is a serious, albeit crazy, implementation of Unix on the Intel platform," said Microsoft president Steve Ballmer.