In times of uncertainty, the theory goes, what society craves above all is not moral leadership but order.

Well, the IT industry is in a state of flux and, say what you like about Microsoft, you know where you are with the Redmond behemoth. The merits of Unix, and its current popular incarnation, Linux, have always been widely recognised.

But order? Linux has more divisions than any underground movement in history. The lack of order in the Linux camp has always been the major reason for its resellers' lack of orders.

In the current downturn you would expect the chances of an overthrow of the old order to be minimal. In fact, the opposite is true. This is because Microsoft has made arguably its first major strategy slip-up for decades.

The firm's licensing strategy - charging users a monthly fee for running applications on Windows XP - might have altruistic origins, but only a handful believe it.

Few IT managers accept that it is about changing to a pay-per-use model, which is more affordable for end users and brings predictable streams of revenue to the vendor and its channel. They suspect that Bill Gates wants add to his personal fortune.

The uncertainty is creating an opportunity for the Linux camp. The current downturn has also concentrated minds on cost cutting. There is enormous pressure on IT managers to make their budgets go further and suddenly, with Microsoft rocking the boat, they have been forced to rethink the way that they buy their software.

If they have always harboured a secret yearning for an alternative supplier, such as those nice Linux people, there has never been a stronger motivation to yield to that temptation.

"At a time when they really need to save money, the perception among end users is that they will pay a lot more under the terms of Microsoft's new licensing strategy," explained Simon Tindall, volume products business manager at Sun Microsystems UK.

"There had long been a suspicion that the increase in functionality in going from one system to another doesn't yield a massive return on investment.

"But when they learned that, in going from Windows 2000 to XP, they would also have to change the way they pay for the software, it really brought home to them that they might not be getting much bang for their buck."

Market opportunity
So Microsoft may or may not have shot itself in the foot. Such an error would create a huge market opportunity for those seeking to undercut Microsoft by offering free distribution and open source software.

In addition to being cheap, Linux is scalable, so you don't get degradation of performance as you aggregate servers together; the bang/buck ratio stays high as you develop a system.

Better still, it can be run on a variety of platforms and, since Intel platforms are available at give-away prices amid the current chip war, end users can get some very economical systems.

It has been like this for some time. However, there has always been a lack of confidence in Linux. You would have thought that by now the Linux camp would have got its story straight, but at the last count there were more than 100 different flavours of Linux.

This surely adds to the cost of a purchase; after all, how long does it take to evaluate all the different options? At least Microsoft gives you what advertising creatives call 'the freedom of a tight brief'. You know exactly what you are getting, so you can get on with the main task.

Although Linus Torvalds stabilised the core of the Linux operating system, there is still a bewildering choice of flavours in development. And that does not include the home-brew efforts of hobbyists and enthusiasts.

If you only consider the recognised mainstream commercial/enterprise offerings, that still leaves a dozen distributions. These are all open source and available for free download, but if bought off the shelf they are accompanied by a multitude of service options and additional programs.

Below is a list of what Computer Reseller News sees as the main contenders, but who is to say we are right? The fact there are so many options will always create an atmosphere of doubt.

SCO
The SCO Group's OpenLinux product line is a multitasking, multi-user Linux-based operating system with utilities aplenty. SCO Group, formerly known as Caldera, will now focus on the UnitedLinux project.

Turbolinux
Under new ownership, but still one of the more prominent Linux flavours, Turbolinux is designed for enterprise computing. It is one of the key players in the new UnitedLinux distribution.

UnitedLinux
Aimed at business users baffled by the divisions among the other flavours of Linux, UnitedLinux remains bitterly divided from Red Hat.

Red Hat
This flavour holds the biggest market share. Reputedly the ultimate in development, deployment and management of Linux for an internet infrastructure. Red Hat distributions for Intel, Alpha and Sparc are built from the same source packages to maximise portability between hardware platforms.

SuSE
The biggest competitor to Red Hat. Known for its easy-to-use interface, SuSE is also renowned for good customer service, making it a strong player in the enterprise space. Like Red Hat, SuSE is one of the oldest flavours of Linux. It is also involved in the UnitedLinux project.

Mandrake Linux
Created in 1998 in a bid to make Linux easy for everyone, Mandrake compromised Linux's power and stability to reduce the advanced technical knowledge needed.

Also-rans
Debian
Gentoo Linux
Slackware
Lycoris
Amethyst 2 Desktop

Linux itself is an offshoot of Unix, which suffered the same fragmentation. When Linus Torvalds created Linux it was hoped that it would wrest control of the software industry from Microsoft. It hasn't achieved this, partly because there has been such a confusing range of vendors.

Attempts are now being made to impose order on Linux itself. UnitedLinux was a joint development effort by four of the biggest hitters: Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux.

This has run into trouble, following events among two of the founder members. Caldera announced that it would change its name to SCO Group and restart development of the popular Unix software it acquired when it bought the Santa Cruz Operation in 2001.

This was a logical move, as this represents the majority of its business. More recently, Turbolinux's Linux software business was acquired by Japanese vendor Software Research Associates.

Still, both companies say they are committed to UnitedLinux. Version 1.0 of UnitedLinux will be launched before the year is out, according to SCO Group chief Darl McBride.

Not everyone is convinced, however. "UnitedLinux was a reaction to Red Hat's dominance, but I doubt that it came up with the benefits expected," said one detractor who wished to remain anonymous. "That's not very united, is it? How many versions of Linux do users want?"

The perceived failure of UnitedLinux, thanks to Caldera's lack of commitment and Turbolinux's possible change of direction, can only help Red Hat.

A couple of months ago UnitedLinux appeared to be a viable alternative but, within a couple of months, it seems to have dispersed.

If it is a consistent story that impresses users most (and it would appear that this is what they liked about Microsoft) then, if they are to persevere with any Linux vendor, logically it must be Red Hat.

One reseller maintained that the UnitedLinux project is senseless. "It's stupid, because open source is by definition vendor-neutral," said Eddie Bleasdale, director of open source consultancy Netproject. "The whole point is that you do not have commercial people developing the code."

The UnitedLinux project was designed to create a server operating system for corporates, allowing hardware and software vendors to certify for a single version of Linux.

Each member company plans to issue its own enterprise server software, built around the common UnitedLinux core. SuSE, for example, will include its Yast configuration suite.

The success of Red Hat is a result of keeping things simple and communicating a clear strategy to end users and the channel, according to Dirk Haaga, Red Hat's EMEA channel manager.

"We've got two product lines: Advanced Server, which addresses enterprise customers through our value-added channel; and Red Hat Linux 8.0, which we launched for the retail sector and small enterprises," he said.

"The main customers will be people who buy this on a single box. We have one distributor that has 2,500 resellers. How difficult is that to understand?

"We are setting up a reseller programme, but the biggest driver among new customers is one that resellers will understand: the need to cut costs.

"With Advanced Server we are well placed to fill the gap between Microsoft Exchange Server, which is increasingly seen as too expensive for what it does, and Sun Solaris, which is just too expensive."

Reseller niches
So much for Linux's internal politics. Where is the business coming from? As Haaga hinted, there are definite niches that Linux resellers can fill, once they are clear about which companies they should work with.

There is definite scope for sales of applications running at the edge of the network, according to Tindall. "File and print services, firewalls, email services, caching; these are all the low-hanging fruit for Linux vendors," he explained.

But Sun has more ambitious plans. Its Project Mad Hatter is aimed at pushing Linux to the desktop. The scheme involves Sun launching a PC that, when sold in batches of 100 to enterprises, can be used as one of several clients that attach to a mega Solaris server in the corporate data centre.

The PC will run StarOffice - the package that never ousted Microsoft Office, even when given away free with Java - which will, of course, run on Linux. Pricing structures are still unclear, but Sun is convinced that it can finally win the thin-client-versus-PC argument.

However, some people in the channel are convinced that it could be a winner for the channel. "It will extend the scope of resellers that were limited to selling back-end servers," stated Deborah Lees, marketing manager at Sun Channel Development Partner tplc. "The clients will have all the office products you would expect, but at a fraction of the cost."

IBM, on the other hand, has a different view of where its reseller channel will be making sales. The company is positioning Linux at the core of enterprise computing environments by consolidating the operating system into 'virtual servers' hosted on its mainframe computers.

A key element of this strategy is IBM's recently unveiled e-business on demand service, Linux Virtual Services. This connects customers with Linux applications to IBM e-business hosting centres that provide managed server processing, storage and networking capacity on demand.

IBM claims that server consolidation means that complexity is significantly reduced because server-to-server communication is performed internally, and reliability is improved by cutting the number of potential points of failure.

So where will Linux fit into the enterprise as IBM continues to bang its drum about consolidating distributed systems on its Linux mainframe platform? This fragmentation is dangerous, surely? It is off-putting, yes. But will it take time to overcome?

"No," said Tindall. "What is really going to be important to people is that they get tried and tested suppliers. They can buy Red Hat Linux but will they, for example, be able to get their Argentinean office supported?

"They could with us. And will they be forced to endlessly upgrade by vendors such as SuSE that need their customers to keep going to new versions of the software? This market will only grow up when there is a degree of consolidation and maturity."

By which he means that the big boys are taking over. Or to put it another way, prepare for the rise of a new order.

IN THE FIRING LINUX

In the past, one of Linux's big selling points was its impregnability. This is no longer the case. Its popularity means that it is being targeted by virus writers, and some believe it to be as vulnerable as Windows.

Network Associates' Anti-virus Emergency Response Team has logged more than 170 viruses and Trojans for Linux, as well as an additional 30 Unix shell scripts.

Of these, six or seven are active in the field at any one time. Currently the threat comes from Ramen, Lion, BoxPoison, OSF, Scalper and its modification, Slapper.

The Slapper virus and its clones currently attacking Apache web servers are the most visible side of this movement against open source, and the worm itself will be the development environment of choice for virus writers.

"Considering that we are not yet in the fourth quarter, this indicates that 2002 will see twice as many Linux security bugs as 2001," warned Chris Rouland, director of X-Force, a virus monitoring company.

CONTACTS

Red Hat (01483) 734 943
www.redhat.com

SuSE (020) 8387 4088
www.suse.co.uk

Sun (0800) 857 7003
www.sun.co.uk

Tplc
www.tplc.co.uk

IBM (0141) 334 0593
www.develop.ibm.com

Turbolinux
www.turbolinux.com

Netproject (020) 8715 0072
www.netproject.com