HP Linux OS rumour-mill goes into overdrive

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Rumours that HP may be developing its own Linux operating system have surfaced from anonymous sources in a recent news article.

The article from BusinessWeek claims the world’s largest PC supplier is looking to safeguard its market share by supplementing the Microsoft Windows OS-based demand for its products with an open source OS alternative that could also offer a competitive alternative to Apple’s growing share of the market.

Phil McKinney, chief technology officer of HP’s personal systems group, did not deny the rumours, but told the publication it would make no sense to create a new operating system from scratch.

But he did confirm the company is developing software that would enable users to access multimedia PC functionality on top of Vista, like touchscreen tap and drag actions.

“For HP to even think about its own flavour of Linux is crazy,” according to Clive Longbottom, service director at analyst firm Quocirca.

“RedHat and Novell have the main part of the market sewn up,” he added. “They’d have to re-invent all the good stuff that the likes of RedHat have done around high availability and other enterprise stuff, as this isn't available as part of the standard kernel.”

McKinney’s suggestions of development work to enable Linux to run alongside and boot up quickly alongside Windows on a single machine would, however, allow it to tap new market share and safeguard its strategic relationship with Microsoft.

But Longbottom observed: “Sure, it can tie down its own hardware to a specific OS that you can only get from HP – just like HP-UX [HP-Unix] – but they can’t charge a licence for it or change the kernel, or it’s not Linux, just HP-UX more open. They then have to persuade software vendors to validate their software for this OS – unlikely unless it takes a large chunk of the market.

“[It] just sounds like a great way of getting rid of a heap of money to me,” he said.

HP had not responded to requests from IT PRO for further comment at the time of writing.

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