Landscape 1.3: Can Canonical, Ubuntu Partners Profit?
It’s another small step for Canonical’s Ubuntu business, and a giant leap forward for the company’s Landscape management platform. The new Landscape 1.3 release allows IT managers and resellers to remotely administer physical or virtual servers within a corporate network or on the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). But this is more than a technology story. Landscape could play a critical role in Canonical’s effort to build revenue-generating services.
That’s right: Canonical is becoming a service provider. Here’s where I think Landscape fits in the Ubuntu market today — and where I think Landscape is heading over the next two to three years.
First, the near-term opportunities: Ubuntu Server Edition continues to carve out a niche for itself for general purpose applications — file, print, Web, email, etc. Many members of the WorksWithU 1000 — which tracks Ubuntu deployments worldwide — have pushed beyond Ubuntu desktops and now run Ubuntu servers as well. Moreover, Canonical is experiencing some progress with Hewlett-Packard Co., which is expected to soon certify ProLiant servers to run Ubuntu. Plus, independent training centers are introducing new courses for Ubuntu Server Edition.
Today’s Challenges
Now for the three key challenges facing Canonical and Ubuntu Server Edition:
- Revenue Model: Certainly, not all Ubuntu Server Edition customers actually pay Canonical for support. So even as Ubuntu Server Edition’s installed base grows it’s unclear how much money Canonical actually makes off the operating system.
- Administration: Even customers that are curious about Ubuntu Server Edition may hesitate to deploy the operating system until they find mature management tools for the operating system.
- Channel Support: Solutions providers also are trying to figure out how to (A) cash in on Ubuntu and (B) remotely manage customers’ initial Ubuntu deployments.
Landscape, at least in theory, can play a role in addressing all three of those challenges. Aside from developing the Ubuntu distribution, Canonical is building a portfolio of revenue-driven Ubuntu services — from Landscape (for administration) to Ubuntu One (for shared file management). Ubuntu One is in beta testing now; Landscape 1.3 is available immediately.
According to a Canonical press release, Landscape 1.3 includes:
-
Management of Ubuntu on Amazon EC2 – as users begin to migrate applications to cloud environments, they can now use Landscape to start, stop and manage their Ubuntu instances on Amazon EC2, the world’s most popular cloud environment.
-
The ability to choose Ubuntu images on Amazon EC2 – pre-configured by Canonical with a Landscape client, this simplifies the process of managing Ubuntu on Amazon EC2. Users can enter their EC2 credentials directly through Landscape to start a service.
-
Management of physical and virtual machines – start an Ubuntu Amazon Machine Image (AMI) on Amazon EC2 and easily register that instance with a Landscape subscription. All virtual machines can then be managed and monitored in the same way as physical ones.
-
Updated Custom Graph feature – users can create and store trends of key system parameters. They can create simple scripts to plot those parameters as well as monitor any machine-reportable parameter such as CPU, memory and disk usage.
Tomorrow’s Opportunities
Landscape sounds promising. Over time, I expect it to evolve into a tool for corporate IT managers and Canonical’s channel partners — including resellers, solutions providers and managed service providers (MSPs).
Simply put: Most of today’s smartest solutions providers and MSPs are charging their customers flat monthly fees to proactively monitor and trouble-shoot business networks. In theory, Landscape fits perfectly into this so-called managed services, recurring revenue model. But there are some short-term problems Canonical will need to sort out.
Let’s start with price: Landscape is available free with Ubuntu support from Canonical or, for those who do not yet require support, as a paid service priced at $150 per node, with discounting available on larger volumes. But the math doesn’t really add up for channel partners. Most MSPs are charging anywhere from $50 to $250 per managed desktop and server. I’m not sure if Canonical’s $150-per-node price will leave enough profit margin for VARs and MSPs to back Landscape.
Still, I’m getting ahead of myself. Initially, Canonical is targeting corporate IT managers with Landscape. It could take months — or years — for Canonical to built out a channel strategy for Landscape.
The sooner, the better. Clearly, Canonical wants to offer a range of paid managed services around Ubuntu. Without channel partners on board, Landscape and other emerging Canonical services can’t fulfill their vast promise.
WorksWithU is updated daily. Don’t miss a single post. Sign up for our RSS and Twitter feeds (available now) and newsletter (coming in 2009).
WorksWithU on Identi.ca
WorksWithU on Twitter
WorksWithU's RSS Feed
Any word yet on the adoption numbers of Landscape since its introduction? What’s the baseline expectation for uptake in terms of new monthly subscriptions based on the last quarter?
You should compare the cloud enabled Landscape as a service offering with the Red Hat’s ec2 based cloud enabled RHEL/RHN servicing model currently in beta.
http://www.redhat.com/solutions/cloud/index.html?id
http://www.redhat.com/solutions/cloud/faq/
You’ll notice immediately from the FAQ that Red Hat is taking a different approach towards billing subscriptions for the cloud services.
It seems Canonical is offering a 60 day trial for landscape 1.3. You know what would be great? If you gathered up a smattering of workswithu readers who have Ec2 deployments and challenged them to start the landscape 60 day trial..and have them keep a daily journal. Then at the end of the 60 days, survey them to see how it went and whether or not they are going to keep paying for the service and write up an article based on the feedback. Maybe you can find some good candidates in the WorksWithU 1000 deployment catelog. Even if you can’t find people willing to do it..that would say something significant in and of itself.
The most important question that Canonical needs to find an answer to is what services Ubuntu users feel are worth paying for. A 60-day trial survey like I just proposed could definitely help WorksWithU bring focus to that question. The management integration between Landscape 1.3 and Ec2 could be absolutely superb and yet still not be a set of services people feel are worth paying for. If that’s the case, that’s the sort of hard reality that Canonical needs to learn sooner rather than later.
-jef
Jef: Fair points all around. I will give the comparison to RHEL/RHN some thought. But I also want to set expectations.
As a growing company, Nine Lives Media Inc. (owner of WorksWithU, The VAR Guy and MSPmentor) has its hands full with multiple research projects at the moment (particularly the MSPmentor 250 that the WorksWithU 1000).
But I do want to acknowledge the following: In recent weeks you’ve challenged us to take a far closer look at Canonical’s business model, and business models across the open source industry. Your ideas above may help us to do that. And I promise to give it more thought as time potentially permits this week.
Joe:
I think the accumulated experience in the WorkswithU 1000 members is something which could probably be tapped for a Landscape experience survey without an egregious amount of effort. I don’t know how long the 60 day trial will be offered. But if its still available in a month that should give you enough time to canvas the WorkswithU 1000 membership looking for companies that are genuinely interested in seeing if Landscape has value for them and would be willing to run it as a trial and provide feedback knowing you were going to forward that feedback to Canonical on their behalf. Organizations in the WorkswithU 1000 membership want their experience to be made public..or else they wouldn’t be in your catelog.
Leverage that desire and get out in front by either driving Landscape adoption by creating a set of testimonials..or driving Landscape service evolution by creating a prioritized list of changes synthesized from the WorksWithU 1000 experience. Either way a summary of the WorksWithU 1000 deployment membership experience has immense value in helping to make sure the value of the Landscape service is realized.
-jef
Joe,
Thanks for writing about Landscape, I hope your readers will be interested in it and try it out. The cloud whether Amazon’s EC2 or Ubuntu’s Enterprise Cloud (UEC) is all new and the importance of management will only increase. If you’re running a thousand nodes the ability to update and monitor those systems is critical.
Landscape is designed to make the life of systems administrators easier – and that include managed service providers!
Steve: No need to “thank” me. Thanks for reading the site. Forgive me if I should know this, but are you with Canonical?
Either way you can count on WorksWithU to continue building out its content. We want to be the independent guide to Ubuntu, for enthusiasts and for businesses.
But we’ll also work hard not to be a “cheerleader” for Ubuntu. We don’t want readers to think Ubuntu, Landscape and other related items are tools that solve all IT problems. Instead, we want to responsibly analyze where Ubuntu fits in business — and even where it may not fit.
Either way, we’ll be working hard to earn and maintain readers’ trust.
-jp
Editorial Director
WorksWithU
I’m English we thank everyone, if we’re not saying “sorry” or “excuse me” that is! I work for Canonical, and indirectly have responsibility for Landscape.
Obviously, we love and believe in it and the whole team works really hard to develop it. So we’re always excited and thrilled to hear what people think when we release a new version. Consequently, my thanks that you thought it was interesting to readers! We take the rough with the smooth – and of course know that other people will have different perspectives.
I agree with you that Landscape isn’t a tool to solve every IT problem – wouldn’t it be amazing if it was though! But I hope what we can do with Landscape is deliver the best tool for managing your Ubuntu systems. We’re not competing with Tivoli! But if we can free up a sys admin to do something interesting rather than apply a security update to a hundred machines one at a time … then I think we’ve made life a _little_ better!
Steve: Thanks for the background info. Please keep us posted as you connect with beta testers and early customers who embrace Landscape. I’d welcome the opportunity to hear about their experiences. And thanks for reading WorksWithU.
-jp
Editorial Director
WorksWithU