Red Hat has no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market, but will continue to place its bets on a desktop for commercial markets.

We know Linux has enough potential to be a consumer desktop and we also know that Linux has less than 2% of desktop market share. Let's admit the truth. Linux enthusiasts may site a thousand reasons on why Linux does not sit on consumer desktops, or conversely why people are not ready to Linux even after Linux is absolutely ready.

Red Hat says it has no plans to develop a consumer version of Linux, owing in part to the challenges presented by Microsoft's dominance of the desktop market. Red Hat's Global Desktop Linux, aimed at emerging markets, has also been delayed, owing to a number of reseller and services issues.

Microsoft's GNU/Linux-hostile vision of the Web is not catching on

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

New York Times sees European Court ruling in the Microsoft antitrust case as a healthy step in the growth of the information economy

Well, it just so happens that the company is no stranger to Linux, because their CURRERA-R series of machine-vision, smart cameras (integrated with an Intel-based personal computer) has support for Linux.

Yesterday as I was sitting in a cafe having a drink, I caught up on my New York Times business section. In a review of the new class of Mini-Notebooks, I wasn’t surprised to see Linux mentioned. After all Linux is the dominant OS in these new class of computers, described by the Times as bigger than a smart phone but smaller than a laptop.

Dell today flipped the switched and is now officially offering consumer desktop and notebook PCs with Ubuntu 8.04 pre-installed. Two notebooks and one desktop join two desktop systems in Dell’s open-source product portfolio.