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.

Led by embedded consumer electronics device deployments, Linux is on "a trajectory to be the emerging platform of choice," says Mark Shuttleworth in an interview. The Canonical founder discusses plans for a user-friendly version of the popular Ubuntu desktop OS just for mobile and embedded devices, among other topics.

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.

Microsoft got things seriously wrong when it released Vista and the company knows it. In the past, the absolute market dominance of Windows on the desktop has allowed Redmond to get away with such mistakes. That may no longer be the case.

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

The desktop Linux market got a big boost earlier this month at LinuxWorld, where Lenovo unveiled plans to soon begin selling ThinkPads preloaded with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. The deal makes Novell the second major vendor to support Linux on its consumer PCs, following the trail Dell blazed in May with its decision to offer machines loaded with Ubuntu Linux.

Sometimes, you have to respect someone for sticking to an opinion and a vision. Other times, you have to wonder if a consistent vision becomes a fatal flaw. A case in point: In a New York Times article, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst (pictured, right) once again dismisses speculation that Red Hat will pursue the consumer Linux desktop and smart phone markets. Here's why.

Nothing. This is what we know about the so-called Red Hat Global Desktop, except that "it delivers a modern-user experience with an enterprise-class suite of productivity applications" and that it's supposed to be installed "on Intel's white box partners' PCs ... primarily aimed at small businesses and governments in emerging countries"

Linux's market value in China is growing, according to CCID Consulting, owing to growing approval from government, finance, telecoms and post services. Linux is also making inroads to the desktop in China, mostly from smaller PC manufacturers. In addition, mobile devices are a widening market for Linux.