Red Hat Sets Release Dates for ‘Taroon’

SAN FRANCISCO — Linux software and services vendor Red Hat Tuesday said it will release its new bundled enterprise management solution (code-named Taroon) this fall.

The announcement is part of the Raleigh, N.C.-based company’s ongoing strategy to bring Linux to corporate server rooms in one easy to swallow package as well as bolster its Web services presence.

“There are a number of pieces of solutions, and our customers asked us, ‘How about bundling them?'” Red Hat director of Product marketing/management Deb Woods told internetnews.com.

At this point, Red Hat said it will launch its Enterprise Linux 3.0 product in September, with a planned October ship date. The company said training and professional services would also be available.

Woods said she couldn’t comment on the complaint it filed on Monday against SCO Group , offering proof that Red Hat’s technologies do not infringe any intellectual property of SCO and asking the court to stop SCO’s FUD-spreading. SCO’s claims that it has received U.S. copyright registrations for its UNIX System V and UnixWare source code and its $1 billion legal attack against IBM are the hot topic at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here.

Aside from the SCO lawsuit, Wood told internetnews.com that the biggest issue at the show was managing the transition from UNIX or Windows to Linux.

“The feature set that’s needed is there, the performance is there,” she said. “Now, it’s a problem of execution.”

While refusing to provide specific details of the planned functionality of the 3.0 release, Woods said, “You’ll see us expand past the operating system. You’ll see some open source applications, and see us getting into the desktop arena.”

For example, Red Hat said it will expand its Linux workstation offering to include support for desktop usage and office productivity tools.

“This fall, you’ll see us get more aggressive with system management adding a lot more functionality for helping enterprise users manage systems,” Wood said. “There’s a strong total cost of ownership play in using Linux, and the same play is there in helping deploy applications and manage systems.”