Why, this clock is exactly two days slow!

Everyone's favourite proprietory Unix vendor is going to have their very own Linux distribution, oficially called the Mad Hatter project.

Sun has posted screenshots and a brief discussion of Mad Hatter on their website: external link.

Initially it seems a bit late to be entering the now consolidating distro market, but Sun's strategy options have a few major strengths, and only one of them is lot's of money.

Firstly, the product will integrate StarOffice, Sun's cheap answer to Microsoft Office. StarOffice is the wealthy parent of the open source OpenOffice.org project, and is now a reasonalby mature and effective alternative to MS Office.

Secondly, the bundled Ximian Evolution email/pim client will include a connector for Sun's Sun ONE messaging and calendar server, so Sun is offering a one stop office productivity solution. The only real options in this market (for linux clients) are Microsoft Exchange (with Ximian connector), Samsung Contact and now Sun ONE. Group calendar services are currently a stumbling block for many small businesses switching to Linux.

Thirdly, they have the name and reputation that promises stability and support. Or at least it has that appearence, and it is the appearence that matters when you are presenting to a board or CIO.

Their commitment is questionable though. For instance, the aforementioned PR release talks about how Mad Hatter fits into Sun's overall software strategy, and then links to a pdf to read more about that. I am struggling to see where the linked article refers to the stages referred to, or even where a desktop distibution fits in the strategy at all... Possibly in project Orion, but I'm not sure. You can read it here and tell me if youcan make any more sense of it!

But all in all I think it is good news. Certainly another big name in the arena should help squash the silly SCO induced fear in some management staff.