Preparing to rollout Dapper LTS today, the Ubuntu website has done something new: it now lists commercial support options right on the front page. Canonical offers desktop Linux support for a year, up to ten cases, starting at $250 for desktops, $750 for servers and $1200 for thin client and cluster support.

In addition to listing Canonical’s offerings (which obviously, at least we’d hope obviously, would scale downwards for enterprise), there is now a far more visible page proffering the names and contact information of hundreds of commercial support organizations – it lists more than 20 in the North America alone – providing support services for Ubuntu desktops and servers.

Canonical’s COO Jane Silber told Computer World last month that the number of organizations offering support for Ubuntu had topped 200 (in an interview with The 451 Group to be posted here on 2 June, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth claimed that there were 300 organizations around the world offering some kind of commercial offering around Ubuntu), and that Canonical was offering 24/7 support in English and French. She also pointed out elsewhere that support options for Ubuntu differed from those of Red Hat and Novell because enterprises could pick specific servers for which they want support, leaving out others. That kind of mix and match strategy will have great appeal to organizations in South America, Asia and Europe, and should certainly get people to think at least a second time about trying out Ubuntu in US enterprises.