Even as Dell prepares to ship computers with Ubuntu 10.04 pre-loaded, the PC giant is battling rumors that it no longer remains committed to Canonical’s Linux distribution. For Dell, it’s time for a clear, concise statement that specifically describes the company’s history with Ubuntu and next moves with the operating system. Here’s why.

UPDATE, July 27, 2010: Dell’s Web site now lists a Studio XPS desktop system running Ubuntu 10.04.

Still, rumors have clouded Dell’s Ubuntu strategy. The PC giant introduced Ubuntu on several desktops and notebooks in 2007, and Dell Ubuntu netbooks soon followed. But more recently, Dell’s U.S. website (www.dell.com/ubuntu) has offered a very limited Ubuntu lineup. And some media blogs have spread rumors that Dell will stop selling Ubuntu online.

The result: Dell’s reputation within the Ubuntu community is hit and miss. That’s too bad, especially since Dell had the guts to preload and promote Ubuntu systems the very year Windows Vista launched. Dell says it has shipped more Ubuntu systems than any other PC company in the world. Plus, Dell’s cloud strategy includes Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. And more recently, Dell in April 2010 reaffirmed its commitment to Ubuntu even as Windows 7 won upbeat feedback from many customers and media sites.

So why are some users and some media members so skeptical about Dell’s Ubuntu commitment? Part of the problem involves PR and fragmented communications. Generally speaking, I find Dell very responsive to my PR inquiries. But Dell’s Ubuntu strategy varies from one country to the next. As a result, negative media coverage in one country can spill over into another country.

Despite all the controversy, Dell’s web site indicates that the company plans to ship Ubuntu 10.04 on selected systems sometime during the summer of 2010 (see tip 5 on this web page for the Dell 10.04 pre-load statement). August is nearly here. The new Ubuntu 10.04 systems, plus a clear Ubuntu strategy statement from Dell, would go a long way toward silencing the PC giant’s critics.

UPDATE, July 27, 2010: Dell’s Web site now lists a Studio XPS system running Ubuntu 10.04.

The market for integrating Linux machines into Active Directory environments has been heating up in recent months, with both Likewise and Centrify releasing new software that does almost exactly the same thing: make joining a domain as simple as a few clicks or keystrokes.  Of course, the two companies’ offerings work in different ways.  We wanted to know which is best, so we’ve spent the last several weeks testing the competing products.  Here’s what we found.

As we’ve explained in past coverage of Likewise Open and Centrify Express, both applications offer the same basic service–simple Active Directory-based authentication for Unix systems–for the same price–free.  Each product can also be upgraded to licensed versions that provide more features, but we’ve stuck with the free-to-use releases for the purposes of this post.

More specifically, we compared Likewise Open version 6, which was released about a month ago, to Centrify Express, a new member of the Centrify product suite that was introduced in June.  Both applications are available as free downloads on their respective developers’ websites.

Installation

Likewise Open is available from the Ubuntu repositories for releases 8.04 and up, but in order to get the latest version, you’ll have to download an installer from the company’s website.  Likewise offers both graphical and command-line installers for Linux.

Centrify doesn’t yet have packages in Ubuntu’s repositories.  According to a Centrify employee, however, Canonical validated the product this week, so we should see it in the Software Center soon. In the meantime, installation scripts customized for Ubuntu are available from Centrify’s website.  They must be run from the terminal; there’s no graphical interface.  Alternatively, rather than running the installation script, you can manually install a set of Debian packages that provide the Centrify binaries.

In both cases, installation via the scripts was pretty straightforward and took only a few minutes.  There’s really not much more to say here.

Joining a Domain

Joining machines to a domain after installing Likewise Open and Centrify Express is also pretty simple.  Centrify has the advantage of offering the option to join at install time, but both products provide utilities for joining a domain at any later point with a relatively simple command.

Likewise also offers a graphical interface–albeit one with no features beyond the very basic–for joining a domain, as well as a command-line utility.  Centrify Express is CLI-only on Linux.

Out-of-the-Box Configuration

Likewise and Centrify are pretty similar as far as installation and joining a domain are concerned.  When it comes to configuration, however, the fundamental differences between the two products start to show.

For starters, the out-of-the-box settings of Likewise and Centrify diverge in many places.  For example, Centrify assumes that the first domain to which a computer is joined is the “default,” allowing users to log in with a simple:

ssh username@host

Likewise doesn’t assume default domain until told to do so, which means the syntax for logging in is more complicated, along the lines of:

ssh 'domain\username'@host

Likewise can be changed to behave like Centrify, but it doesn’t do so out-of-the-box.

Similarly, Likewise creates home directories for new users at /home/<domain>/username, while Centrify defaults to the Unix-standard /home/username.  Centrify’s approach seems like it could theoretically lead to collisions if a local account has the same name as a user from the Active Directory, but that risk aside, I prefer having all home folders in the same place regardless of whether the accounts are local or not.

Customization

Of course, the default behavior of Likewise and Centrify can be changed easily enough by editing the relevant configuration files.  While both companies provide quite rigorous documentation for configuring their products (see Likewise Open’s Configuration Guide and the Centrify Express Admin Guide), however, the way in which their configuration data is structured is quite different.

Overall, Centrify adheres much more closely to a traditional Unix approach.  Its configuration files are stored in plain text under /etc/centrifydc, and are pretty identical in form to the configuration files of most normal Linux applications.

Most of Likewise’s config files, in contrast, are stored at /opt/likewise/share/config–not exactly an intuitive location for Ubuntu users–and look like lists of Windows registry keys.  They can be modified with any text editor, or with a special utility that ships with Likewise, but this setup is very different from what many Unix system administrators are used to.  And despite representing a departure from earlier releases of Likewise Open, the Windows-esque setup is perhaps not surprising, given that several of Likewise’s VIPs are  Microsoft expatriates.

This isn’t to say one product’s approach is better than the other’s, as both certainly have their merits.  But depending on whether you see the world through a Linux lens or a Windows one, Centrify might be more appealing than Likewise, or vice-versa.

Licensing

If Likewise’s configuration is more reminiscent of Windows than Centrify’s, the opposite is true when it comes to licensing.  Likewise Open is available under the GPL, with full source code publicly released (Likewise Enterprise, of course, is proprietary).  In contrast, although Centrify releases the code of its customized versions of Putty, OpenSSH and Samba and contributes some of its work upstream, the source of Centrify Express itself is closed.

These licensing differences don’t affect the performance of either product, but for the ideologically minded, they can be an important consideration.

Restricting Logins

By default, once a computer joins a domain, anyone with a valid account on that domain can log in.  This is undesirable in many cases.  Both Centrify and Likewise, however, provide mechanisms for restricting logins.

Under Likewise, the system administrator can edit a configuration file to restrict access to certain groups.  Another solution, if you like writing bash scripts, is to change Likewise’s default login shell to a wrapper script that decides whether or not the user logging in should be granted a real shell.

While Centrify supports the wrapper-script strategy, it can also restrict logins using arguments that are passed to the pam_centrifydc PAM module to tell it to grant access only to certain users or groups.  For my money, this approach is a bit better than Likewise’s because it allows access to be granted not only at the group level but also on a per-user basis.  On the other hand, if you preferconfiguring access in a configuration file over dealing with PAM, you’ll be more comfortable under Likewise.

Conclusions

Overall, Centrify Express and Likewise Open are both very capable products that certainly blow Winbind and all its hassle out of the water.  Each solution is so capable, in fact, that we can’t deem one better than the other.  They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but neither comes out decisively on top.

Perhaps the most important factor to take into consideration when deciding which service to adopt is the way the applications are structured: while Centrify looks and feels much more like a traditional Unix program, Likewise will be more familiar to administrators accustomed to Windows.  In other words, if you like doing things the Unix way, choose Centrify.  If you feel more at home with GUIs and the Windows registry, Likewise will probably fit your needs better.

The upgrade paths available for Centrify and Likewise are also an important item to consider when deciding which product to deploy.  While Likewise Open and Centrify Express are both free and sufficient for the needs of home users and small organizations, administrators of larger environments will want to upgrade to the licensed versions of the software, such as Likewise Enterprise and Centrify Platinum.  Centrify, with its broader suite of products, offers a bit more flexibility when it comes to upgrading, but figuring out which product line makes most sense is a question particular to the needs of each individual organization.  We won’t dive into it here, but stay tuned for more on this topic in weeks to come.

Canonical and IBM, as expected, have expanded their relationship. The latest move involves a virtual appliance, comprising IBM’s DB2 Express-C software running on the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud. At first glance the Canonical-IBM relationship is a nice win for Ubuntu. But perhaps there’s a deeper story angle here… involving Canonical’s continued pursuit of Oracle on Ubuntu. Here’s the speculation.

IBM’s DB2 has a solid reputation in the database market. DB2 gained fame on IBM mainframes before carving out a niche for itself on Unix, Linux and Windows servers. But ultimately, DB2 trails Oracle and Microsoft’s SQL Server in the Linux and Windows server markets, respectively.

Back in 2007, Gartner said, “Each of the major three vendors continue to dominate their particular platform; Oracle on Unix and Linux, Microsoft on Windows, and IBM on the zSeries.” I know that data is getting old, but I suspect little has changed — except for the rise of MySQL in certain segments.

Why Oracle May Care

The big question: Can DB2 really give Canonical and Ubuntu a lift? The answer is a two-part yes.

• First, it’s safe to expect IBM’s sales team to mention the DB2-Ubuntu appliance to customers investigating cloud options. Will that trigger new revenue for Canonical? The jury is still out.
• Second, if the DB2-Ubuntu appliance secures some significant customer wins, the news could catch Oracle’s attention.

As you’ll recall Oracle’s database and application teams don’t yet support Ubuntu — though Oracle’s Sun business has done some work with Canonical and Ubuntu in the past. During media phone briefings in 2009, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said he hopes Oracle will come around to Ubuntu.

But Shuttleworth made it clear Canonical was casting a wider net and pursuing multiple ISVs, not just Oracle. And Oracle certainly has its hands full supporting Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Novell SUSE Linux, Windows Server, and Oracle’s own Unbreakable Linux (among others).

The Next Phone Call…

If Canonical really wants to capture Oracle’s attention, partnering with the IBM DB2 team was a good first step. Next up, Canonical should dial SAP and its recently acquired Sybase database division.

I concede: The blog above is filled with speculation. But the IBM-Canonical relationship is real. I’m curious to see how it plays out and whether it brings more ISVs to Ubuntu’s table.

0 A.D., the open-source RTS game that could radically alter the gaming scene on Ubuntu when it’s completed, recently reached another milestone with its third pre-alpha release.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean it’s playable yet in any meaningful sense. But it has come a long way since we last checked in with the project in March 2010, so here are some updates.

When we spoke last spring with project leader Erik Johannson, 0 A.D. was in a period of transition.  Its developers were testing new strategies for attracting programming help and other assistance for the project, which has been active since 2001 and had been in a bit of a stall.

Fast-forward to the present and several things have changed.  For starters, anyone is now able to contribute code without requiring pre-approval, which should speed up development.  In addition, the developers have begun releasing periodic snapshots of their code so that users can test the game without having to use subversion.

While there are not yet any official, up-to-date binaries available for Linux (binaries are available for Windows, and older third-party packages exist for some Linux distributions, including Ubuntu), the build instructions for Linux have also been cleaned up, making it easier to build the game without being a Linux expert.

Pre-Alpha 3 Release

Since I hadn’t tested 0 A.D. in a while, I downloaded the pre-alpha 3 snapshot of the game, which was released on July 11.  In contrast to my earlier experiences trying to build the application, compiling was very straight-forward and uneventful.  In addition, judging by the compiler output, the code has been cleaned up a lot in recent months; I saw many fewer warnings dumped to the terminal while the binaries were building.

Running the game was also pleasantly uneventful: it started without a problem, and I was able to launch a single-player game with a variety of different maps to choose from.

Here’s a look at the main screen and the new-game menu.  Much of the game interface was recently redesigned, and the improvements are clear.

To my surprise, I was even able to play the game at acceptable speed once I disabled shadows.  Previously, it had never come close to working on my Intel 945G graphics card, but it was actually quite speedy and I was able to put my little Romans happily to work (so far, all of the civilian workers appear to be female, which seems just a little politically incorrect, but I presume this will sorted out with time).

I could even attack the computer player.  The AI has apparently yet to be implemented, however, because the computer didn’t fight back, or do anything at all actually:

Another notable change evident in this pre-alpha release is support for multiplayer games, a major step forward.  I don’t have any friends as cool as me to test this feature with, but the developers report having launched an international match with no problems.  Who needs AI when you have the Internet?

All in all, the game is shaping up impressively.  The art is great, the gameplay looks promising and the commitment to historical accuracy is always a big plus from my perspective.  I’m very excited to continue following development and looking forward to the first fully playable release.

Canonical’s Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) sounds like its set to get a boost from IBM. A source attending HostingCon says a deeper relationship between IBM and Canonical could be announced as soon as July 20. And the relationship, which may surface at OSCON, could give Ubuntu and IBM’s DB2 database a lift in the cloud. Here’s why.

As you may recall, Canonical has been working since mid-2009 to build ISV support for the Ubuntu 10.04 launch in April 2010. Eager partners have included Alfresco and GroundWork Open Source.

Next up, Canonical appears poised to strengthen its existing IBM relationship. A source close to Canonical says a new appliance — designed around Ubuntu and IBM’s DB2 database — could surface this week at OSCON, the Open Source Convention. It sounds like the DB2 appliance will be designed to run on Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud and/or in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). I’m double-checking that chatter with Canonical.

Canonical has resold DB2 Express since around February 2008. IBM also has a vitualized desktop relationship with Canonical, involving Ubuntu and Virtual Bridges.

It’s always good to see Canonical rallying ISVs around Ubuntu. But it’s important to keep the news in context. Within the database market, IBM’s DB2 is most popular on mainframes. But I believe DB2’s market share widely trails Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server on traditional Windows and Linux servers.

Still, a stronger Ubuntu-DB2 relationship is a noteworthy step involving a big partner for Canonical. And it never hurts to have IBM on your side.

“Does Ubuntu have a firewall, and how do I turn it on?” is a popular question among new Ubuntu users.  The answer is a bit complicated, but it’s an understandable inquiry for those migrating from the Windows world. WorksWithU addresses that question below by taking a look at Ubuntu’s firewall and some of the tools available for managing it.

We’ll answer the first question first: Ubuntu, like most Linux distributions, ships with a built-in firewall in the form of iptables, so it does indeed have a firewall.  However, by default, iptables is not “activated,” in the sense that it’s not configured to do anything besides allow all traffic through.

For most Ubuntu users, that’s probably fine.  A normal installation doesn’t have any services running that constitute security risks, and there’s usually little need for a firewall on Ubuntu–especially if you’re behind a router or some other device that abstracts your computer from the public Internet.

On the other hand, if you plan on installing software that will open up additional ports, or if you don’t trust other computers on your network, telling the system to block certain types of traffic can be a good idea.  iptables-based firewalls can also come in handy for things like parental control, since they make it easy to prevent access to certain websites and services.

Firewall Tools

While iptables is very powerful, it’s also pretty complicated to use, unless you enjoy typing complex and obscure commands in the terminal.  Fortunately, a number of tools exist that provide user-friendly frontends for iptables, making it easy to configure firewall rules without reading volumes of man pages.  Here, we’ll take a look at three such tools available for the Ubuntu desktop.

gufw

First on our list is gufw.  gufw is a graphical interface for ufw, or “uncomplicated firewall,” Ubuntu’s native frontend for managing traffic rules.  ufw is a relatively new tool, having made its debut with Ubuntu 8.04 in 2008.  Although earlier versions of the utility lacked advanced features, most Lucid users should find that it more than meets their needs.

In my experience, gufw lives up to its promise of providing uncomplicated firewall configuration.  It doesn’t offer as many advanced options as its command-line companion ufw, but it provides a straightforward interface for blocking and allowing access to certain ports from certain hosts.

gufw would be a little more user-friendly if it made it possible to block services by selecting them from a list, rather than entering the port number manually.  Port numbers are easy enough to look up, but for non-geeks who just want to block websites or services like AIM instant messaging, this might not be obvious.

Firestarter

Firestarter, which has been around for a while, is another tool that provides a simple graphical interface for communicating with iptables.  It offers a few more features than gufw, such as a list of active connections:

Another cool feature built into Firestarter is Internet connection sharing, which makes it simple to allow other computers to connect to the Internet through your computer, if you have multiple network interfaces.  NetworkManager can now also do this, but Firestarter was the first application I know of to make connection sharing as easy as pressing a few buttons.

My only major gripe with Firestarter is the bug described in this forum post, which still seems to be present in Lucid.  By default, the “Add Rule” button was grayed out, and the only way to enable it was to right-click in a certain part of the Firestarter window.  Once I figured this out, however, configuring the firewall policy was pretty straightforward.

The wizard that runs when Firestarter is launched for the first time is also not as user-friendly as it could be, since it asks users what the name of their network interface is and whether it’s using dhcp.  This is stuff that the application should probably be able to figure out on its own, and which non-geeks are unlikely to be able to answer.

Firewall Builder

Last but not least–especially in terms of features–is Firewall Builder.  This cross-platform application may not look very pretty on the Gnome desktop, but it does offer a wide array of options.

Firewall Builder is available in open-source and commercial versions, and its main selling point is support for a variety of popular firewall backends for various operating systems, including Linux, OS X, Windows and others.  In other words, it can apply a single traffic policy across multiple computers running different packet-filtering software.  This design feature may come in handy for users who want a simple means of deploying a consistent firewall policy within a mixed-OS environment.

That said, Firewall Builder is certainly the most complicated of the utilities on our list, and requires some degree of geekiness to configure.  If you just want to keep your kids (or parents) off Facebook, stick with gufw or Firestarter.  But if you have more complex needs and don’t mind reading a little documentation to learn how to get started, Firewall Builder may be worth a look.  It’s available from Ubuntu’s repositories, or you can grab the very latest builds from the developers’ website.

At first glance, Canonical will spend most of this week promoting Ubuntu at OSCON, the open source convention. But take a closer look and you’ll discover Canonical and Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Edition surfacing at HostingCon in Austin, Texas. Here’s why.

At OSCON in Oregon, Ubuntu Server Edition Product Manager Nick Barcet and VP of Corporate Services Neil Levine will be on hand to share portions of Canonical’s vision and strategy. But at HostingCon in Texas, Canonical will also find time to describe how Ubuntu Server Edition and Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) potentially fit into hosting centers.

Smart move on Canonical’s part. By surfacing at HostingCon, Canonical potentially gets to mingle with major hosting providers. Executives from Rackspace, The Planet and Verio — are expected to attend HostingCon, which is expected to attracted well over 1,000 people.

In recent months, Canonical has been building cloud partnerships with a range of companies, including Amazon Web Services, CohesiveFT, Eucalyptus Systems, openQRM Enterprise, Right Scale, Scalr Inc., Turnkey Linux and Unitrends. There’s also chatter about Dell backing Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.

Can Canonical push Ubuntu deeper into hosting centers? It won’t be easy. Red Hat, CentOS, Windows and other operating systems are deeply entrenched in the hosting market. Plus, upstarts like CloudLinux seem to be catching on in some hosting centers.

As OSCON (Open Source Convention) gets set to start July 19 in Portland, Oregon, I’m reminded of an Ubuntu-centric conference that once showed great promise. The event, called Ubuntu Live, was co-located at OSCON in 2007. But it no longer exists. Here’s why it’s time for Canonical to revive Ubuntu Live for partners and customers.

No doubt, Canonical and the Ubuntu community host a range of very successful community gatherings — including Ubuntu Global Jams, so-called Ubuntu Hours and Ubuntu Developer Summits (UDS). Canonical also attends numerous events and the company continues to host educational webcasts.

At OSCON, Ubuntu Server Product Manager Nick Barcet and VP of Corporate Services Neil Levine will be on hand to share portions of Canonical’s vision and strategy.

Building a Business Community

Those all are valuable efforts. Still, Canonical can do more on the conference front. The world’s most successful software companies typically host formal customer and partner conferences. A prime example: I just returned home from the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2010 (WPC10) in Washington, D.C. I know Microsoft has its share of critics, but WPC10 was a fantastic event during which Microsoft shared key product, technology and business strategies with Partners.

In the open source world, partner and customer conferences like Red Hat Summit, JBoss World and Novell BrainShare come to mind. Even smaller open source companies are hosting key summits — such as MySQL Conference, SugarCRM SugarCon and Pentaho Partner Summit come to mind.

What’s the Point?

Vendor-hosted conferences server multiple purposes. Customers and partners can gather to focus on a single, central topic or theme. The host vendor can share its complete vision. And potential customers can hear from those who have successfully adopted and/or deployed key technologies.

Canonical has launched numerous efforts since the Ubuntu Live conference in mid-2007. Ubuntu One, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud and Landscape didn’t exist when Ubuntu Live was last held three years ago. Moreover, Canonical continues to build OEM relationships with a range of hardware companies.

No doubt, Canonical representatives will do a solid job describing new initiatives during OSCON. But it’s time for Canonical to build its own stage. It’s time for the company to host an Ubuntu-centric conference, where customers and partners come together to hear Canonical’s complete vision, share best practices and discuss next steps to success.

It’s time for Canonical to revive Ubuntu Live.

Do you like developing virtual servers and helping the open-source community?  Do you also enjoy winning money and/or the esteem of your peers?  If so, TurnKey Linux’s appliance development contest might be just the way for you to put your leisure time to good use this summer.  Read on for details.

TurnKey Linux is an open-source project that builds virtual appliances for use in the Amazon EC2 cloud.  Its aim is to make the deployment of cloud-based virtual machines as simple as turning a key, so that users can launch servers pre-configured for a specific task in a few seconds, rather than having to build them from scratch.

TurnKey’s appliances, which are based on Ubuntu Server Edition, already include a number of popular applications, such as Mediawiki, Joomla, WordPress and a simple LAMP stack.  But TurnKey’s developers are hoping to leverage contributions from the community to expand their inventory of virtual appliances.

The Contest

That’s where TurnKey’s contest, announced on Monday, comes in.  The project’s leaders are offering cash prizes for submission of new virtual appliances, and suggest a number of applications that could be turned into virtual machines using the TKLPatch tool.

So whether you’ve always wanted to explore virtual-appliance development but never had time, or are already an EC2 guru, check out TurnKey’s contest.  You’ll be helping make the free-software world a better place, and might even win some money in the process.

Addendum: Debian-Based Virtual Appliances

This is somewhat of a sidenote, but we can’t end this post without mentioning another important development in the TurnKey project of late: the decision to release Debian-based virtual appliances as well as Ubuntu ones.  Red Hat, Suse and Gentoo lovers may still be left in the cold, but TurnKey users now at least have a bit of choice when deciding which Linux distribution they’d like to use with their virtual servers.

That may not seem like a big deal at first glance.  Ubuntu and Debian are quite similar architecturally, after all; moreover, when it comes to virtual appliances, the operating system is often not as important as the applications it serves.

However, given the many differences between Ubuntu and Debian’s development and support cycles, they don’t fit the needs of all users equally well, so being able to choose between the two distributions is certainly a good thing.

Like it or not, dealing with Microsoft Active Directory is unavoidable these days for many Ubuntu users and administrators.  Luckily, there are a variety of solutions for integrating Linux systems within an AD environment.  I recently spoke with representatives from Centrify, one organization that develops tools for this purpose.  Here’s what they had to say about Ubuntu, Active Directory, enterprise computing and the future.

Back in February, I wrote about Likewise, one commercial application, aimed mostly at the desktop, designed to streamline the process of joining Linux clients to an AD and save administrators the trouble of configuring samba and winbind manually.  Centrify offers similar products, although it has traditionally targeted mostly large enterprises and does not view Likewise as a direct competitor, according to Corey Williams, Director of Product Management at Centrify.

Centrify and Ubuntu

While Red Hat remains the most popular Linux platform among Centrify’s customers, the company’s representatives told me that they’ve seen increasing demand for Ubuntu, especially on servers.

Although they don’t have hard numbers to back up their impressions, anecdotal evidence indicates that Ubuntu’s market share is now at least equal to that of Suse, they said–a notable milestone for Canonical, whose ultimate success may well lie in its ability to establish Ubuntu as a widely used server operating system.

In addition, Williams also told me that Centrify is seeing increasing use of Ubuntu on workstations among its customers, particularly within mid-size organizations in Europe.  This represents another important fact for those interested in tracing Ubuntu adoption within the enterprise.

Centrify has responded to the increasing popularity of Ubuntu by pursuing a strong relationship with Canonical.  As we noted last November, Centrify officially pledged to support Ubuntu Server Edition 9.10 when it was released in fall 2009.  In addition, the company is a gold partner of Canonical and is working to get its software certified for Ubuntu systems.

Centrify Express

The newest of those products is Centrify Express, a recently released AD solution designed to help expand the company’s customer base by tailoring offerings to mid-size enterprises, according to Vice President of Marketing and Business Development Frank Cabri.

The company hopes Express will appeal to small and medium-sized businesses by simplifying the sales process, while helping to expose more potential customers outside the large-enterprise market to Centrify.  The product became available in late June, and the developers plan on advertising it widely beginning later this month, according to Cabri.

For my part, I’ve spent the last week testing Express within an Ubuntu/Red Hat/Windows environment and comparing it with other AD solutions.  I haven’t quite used it long enough to explore it fully, but stay tuned for a post about my experience.