Hardy Heron is almost out. It’s the latest of the Ubuntu lineage, a really usable Linux.

Arguably, Linux has been the playground of the geek until the ascent of Ubuntu - billed as “Linux for Human beings”. And so it is. With much focus on usability, it has taken leaps and bounds forwards bringing a windows alternative to the masses.

But having a cheap (free) alternative to an operating system is different to having an alternative to Windows.

Certainly in the corporate sphere there are just too many reasons why you wouldn’t want to move from whatever platform you are on.

Directory issues are a key one. No one ever wants to go through the pain of setting up a large corporate Active Directory again. So as long as you’re using that, you’re stuck with Windows or a whole lot of pain - right?

Not any more.

Unusually, in the top 19 billed “improvements since the last version” - Cannonical are listing Active Directory integration at number 13.

Policy Kit is listed at number 4. For those of you that can remember the improvements in security policy settings when Windows came out with Active Directory 2003 and Windows XP SP2, the reason this is such a big issue will be obvious.

I guess that now the Ubuntu folk (clearly with the whole Linux community advances behind them) have almost cracked the usability issues around wireless cards, external monitors and the like, it’s time to step up to the corporate plate and be heard as a viable ‘drop-in’ alternative to upgrading to the next version of Windows.