The United States market for Linux support got more crowded Tuesday after French Linux vendor Mandrakesoft announced a partner program and a new line of Linux servers for the SMB (small to medium business) market in the U.S.
The Mandrakelinux Solution Provider Program offers both technical and marketing support for U.S.-based partners. Mandrake said it is providing a dedicated technical support team that is tasked with helping answer customer questions about Linux and open source software.
As part of the offering, partners also get to order pre-installed
Mandrakelinux systems, a pair of which was also unveiled today. The two
new servers, Mandrakelinux Dedicated File Server and the Mandrakelinux
Dedicated Email Gateway with spam and virus filtering, are part of the new
Mandrakelinux Dedicated Server Series. The servers are targeted at the SMB
market and promise to offer easy Microsoft Windows migration. The servers
are only available via Mandrakelinux Solution Providers for $750 with no
CPU or usage restrictions.
“We believe the SMB market is currently underserved in terms of Linux
offerings,” Maria Winslow, program manager at Mandrakesoft, told
internetnews.com. “Our new products and approach are designed to reach out to the mainstream small and mid-sized market through
relationships with IT services companies already serving those customers.”
In Winslow’s opinion, the new Mandrake offering fills a need that
neither Red Hat
“Red Hat has focused on the enterprise market, with Novell working to
compete with them in that space,” Winslow explained. “We expect there will
be room in the marketplace as Linux rises in popularity for standard
business use.”
Mandrake started the New Year off by unveiling a new corporate server and a corporate desktop as part of a revamped enterprise strategy.