Red Hat at the Red Hat Summit conference in San Diego this week unveiled several initiatives, including a client product for small business users and plans to build a virtual appliance OS. A new client product, Red Hat Global Desktop, provides a modern user experience with an enterprise-class suite of productivity applications, Red Hat said. The offering is intended for local government and small business custom Red Hat at the Red Hat Summit conference in San Diego this week unveiled several initiatives, including a client product for small business users and plans to build a virtual appliance OS. A new client product, Red Hat Global Desktop, provides a modern user experience with an enterprise-class suite of productivity applications, Red Hat said. The offering is intended for local government and small business customers. Red Hat worked with Intel to develop Global Desktop.Meanwhile, Red Hat and Intel will deliver a Red Hat-branded software platform that supports desktop PCs with the Intel vPro processor. The collaboration between Red Hat and Intel will bring hardware-assisted virtualization to business desktop computing, Red Hat said. “The legacy desktop falls short in its ability to provide a secure, reliable and manageable environment,” said Brian Stevens, CTO at Red Hat, in a statement released by the company. “Intel vPro technology combined with a Red Hat Virtual Appliance OS will allow customers to create a rock-solid foundation that can then provision, manage and secure the PC. This technology will reduce operational costs and increase operational flexibility. We are delighted to partner with Intel on this project.”Also, IBM and Red Hat announced an effort to encourage growth of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM System z mainframes. A program has been set up to assist companies in evaluation, deployment and support. Red Hat in the future plans to unveil a new model for protecting the privacy of critical data, to meet the needs of users in areas such as financial services, the company said. Red Hat on Thursday announced availability of Red Hat Exchange (RHX), a service that extends the company’s Open Source Architecture strategy to include business applications from open source partners built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss platform software. Users can access solutions from 14 Red Hat software partners with offerings ranging from business intelligence to customer resource management and messaging. Partners include companies such as Alfresco, Scalix and SugarCRM. Technology Industry