I have a client who is interested in moving his servers from Windows to Linux. However, the client machines in his network will continue to be Windows (2000 and XP) and he wants the same features that he gets from Active Directory such as group policies and restricting what users can do (what applications they can run) and what they can install. I know that LDAP can't do this, but is there any commercial product that runs on Linux that can perform the same functionality? Thanks for your time.

I personally don't know of any directory service that would provide group policies, etc, outside of AD. Those features are a bastardization of the directory service, and subsequently they don't exist in other products to the best of my knowledge.

Now, if your question was reworded a bit, we might be able to make something happen. For instance, he wants to establish a management capability, instead of requiring group policies.

Will another product provide group policies? No.
Would you likely be able to find a way to manage the workstations? I think so.

LinuxGeek:

If you are looking for comercial products, you might want to look at what Novell is doing. I haven't been involved with their technology since they began moving into Linux, but the combination of Novell Directory Services on NetWare and ZenWorks for the desktop worked wonderfully for controlling Windows clients.

Thanks. Sorry for taking so long to get back but I got pre-occupied with other matters. The OSS movt. really needs to make forward steps in this issue since it's holding back a lot of migrations.

As DBruso said, the ZENWorks product is a fantastic product that would do exactly what you want it to do. Permit you to migrate your servers to a Linux kernel, while maintaining corporate management of your Windows workstations.

There isn't a free product to do desktop management, I would agree. Interested in starting a project? Beautiful thing about OSS, is that you can take the initiative and work on it yourself.