See also: last week's Commerce page.

Linux and business

Caldera Systems comes in as a relatively small company. In 1999, it lost $9 million on $3 million in revenue. Red Hat, instead, filed with a loss of $0.1 million on $11 million in revenue; VA Linux lost $14.5 million on $17.7 million. Caldera has grown from just over $1 million in 1997 and 1998, but it still lags behind the other companies that have gone public so far.

The strategy outlined in the filing is "Linux for eBusiness." This is a relatively new approach, having been adopted less than a year ago, when they evidently gave up trying for business desktops. As part of this strategy, Caldera seems to be betting heavily on its "eBuilder" product, which should come out before June. eBuilder is a Java-based component framework for business applications - and it is at least partly proprietary. Interestingly, one of the "risk factors" listed in the S-1 is that they could lose their license to distribute the parts of eBuilder that come from Evergreen Internet. In other words, Caldera's use of proprietary software poses an explicit risk to the business as a whole. (Of course, dependency on free software is listed as a risk factor as well, as is the case with all Linux IPOs).

Caldera has also paid $1.3 million to Sun for the use of Java, and will likely pay substantially more than that in the future.

The plan for the IPO is to raise $57.5 million. Unless "Linux fever" recedes somewhat over the next couple of months, that number is likely to go up. There is currently no projected share price, which is typical for an initial S-1 filing; that information will get filled in later on. Caldera plans to trade under the symbol "CALD".

Here's a few other bits and pieces from the filing:

• In December, they bought 2% of Troll Tech for 106,356 shares of Caldera stock. Thus, Caldera can be expected to stay committed to KDE. They have also bought 4% of Evergreen Internet and 17% of sister company Lineo.

• They give the usual list of risk factors. First among them is that they changed their strategy in the last year (the "eBusiness" focus). Also: "we have never been profitable."

• The fact that they do not employ any "significant" kernel hackers is also a risk factor.

• Yet another risk factor: the Linux community may not accept their hybrid open source/proprietary approach. That one could be real, Caldera has certainly taken a steady low-level stream of criticism for its use of proprietary software. Bob Young has criticized Caldera for this as well.

• They tried to trademark "OpenLinux" and "Linux for Business," but the application was rejected.

• Through 1998, 100% of Caldera's revenue came from software sales. In 1999, that dropped to 90.9%, with the rest coming from services.

• At the end of 1999, Caldera had 108 employees: 31 in software engineering, 30 in sales and marketing, 20 in customer service and technical support, 7 in operations, 11 in finance and administration and 9 assigned to development of their electronic channel.

• Ray Noorda "beneficially" owns 83.8% of Caldera, by way of the Canopy Group and MTI Technology Corporation. CEO Ransom Love owns 1.6%. The venture capital investments announced on the same day as the IPO filing do not seem to be included in this table. Mr Noorda's large stake was also listed as a risk factor; he can hand pick the board of directors and do just about anything else he wants with the company.

LWN asked whether Caldera planned a community stock offering, but they claimed they were unable to answer the question at this time.

Other announcements from Caldera include a $30 million round of venture capital funding from Sun, Citrix, Novell, SCO, Chicago Venture Partners, and Egan-Managed Capital; and the settlement of the Microsoft lawsuit. Terms on the settlement are not being disclosed, but the information available suggests that the amount involved is around $150 million.

Netizen releases training materials. Netizen has announced the release, under an open publications license, its materials for its Unix and Perl training classes.

IBM 'RedBook' project for remote administration. IBM apparently intends to develop a project which allows for remote administration of Windows and Linux systems. According to this RedBook description, "IBM intends to introduce a product that will allow customers to centrally manage desktops and applications for Windows 98, NT and Linux. Users can utilize any system in the domain, and they can access their customized desktop with the applications defined for them by the adminstrator. The administrator can centrally manage and distribute machine definitions, user assignments to applications, and controlled desktop environments." (Thanks to Lenz Grimmer).

Wave Technologies acquires Sair. Wave Technologies, a training concern, has announced the acquisition of Sair Inc., one of the competing Linux professional certification organizations. They aim to create a larger organization offering a full range of training and certification services. This move further differentiates Sair from the Linux Professional Institute, which has an explicit policy of not getting into the training arena.

Wave's stock, of course, went through the roof on the announcement.

Atipa announces new offices. Atipa Linux Solutions has announced the opening of new offices in New York, San Francisco and Austin. Evidently more are to come in the future.

GraphOn Bridges to be integrated into Corel Linux. Press releases have come out from both GraphOn and Corel announcing that GraphOn's "Bridges" product will be bundled into Corel Linux. Bridges allows Linux users to connect to a Windows PC and run applications there.

Linux wannabe press release of the week. NetCurrents has put out this press release just to make sure the world knows that it uses Linux. "In order to continue to improve the functionality of NetCurrents' proprietary technology and support the expanded range of services being offered to its clients, the Company will continue to expand its use of the Linux operating system." The company is presumably hoping for a boost in the price of its stock (currently at $2 1/2) as a result...

Speaking of wannabes, here's the latest PR from LinuxOne. "The Agreement grants Supercom a non-exclusive, worldwide right to use, sell, reproduce and distribute 'LinuxOne OS', LinuxOne's premier software product." Given that the GPL (and other licenses applying to LinuxOne's copy of Red Hat's distribution) grant all of those rights to anybody, one would hope that Supercom didn't pay a whole lot for this agreement...

Section Editor: Jon Corbet.

Press Releases:

Open Souce Products:
• Inprise Corporation announced that it plans to jump to the forefront of the Linux database market by open-sourcing InterBase 6, the new version of its cross-platform SQL database.

• Quicknet Technologies, Inc. announced the open source release of their Linux device drivers for the company's Internet PhoneJACK, Internet LineJACK, and Internet PhoneCARD Telephone Cards. The device driver code is released under the GNU Public License (GPL) and has been accepted for inclusion in the latest Linux kernel distribution.

• ScreamingMedia announced that ScreamingMedia's SiteWare is included on the Red Hat Linux 6.1 application CD.

  Commercial Products for Linux:

• CorVu announced the availability of its "Enterprise Business Performance Management, Balanced Scorecard and Business Intelligence applications" for Linux.

• Earthweb announced the publication of a set of Linux courseware, available for purchase at the end of the month.

• The Linux Professional Institute has announced the availability of its first Linux professional certification exam.

• Merlin Software announced the availability of an alpha version of "HotWire Fax" - a facsimile system - for Linux. It's available for free download, but does not appear to be free software.

• Multi-User Solutions announced a porting service for companies that want help moving their software to Linux.

• New Mexico Software announced that it will begin shipping its Internet infrastructure technology with Red Hat Linux, beginning February 2, 2000.

• Perle Systems announced its intention to provide comprehensive Linux support across its complete range of serial connectivity and RAS products.

• Proginet Corporation announced the release of its CyberFusion Internet information movement software product for the Linux operating system.

• Vertel announced the availability of its "e*ORB" system, "the first commercially available Object Request Broker (ORB) optimized specifically for the telecommunications industry."

  Products Using Linux:

• IChargeit announced that it is now selling low-end Linux-installed systems, starting at $399.

  Java Products:

• Access Co. Ltd. announced an agreement with Sun Microsystems to establish Access as a provider of an authorized Java compatible Virtual Machine.

• Espial, a provider of embedded Java technology for Internet appliances and Tao Group, a provider of Java virtual machine technologies, announced they will collaborate to offer a complete Java-based solution for the multimedia and interactive entertainment content.

• Servertec announced a new release of iServer, a small, fast, scalable and easy to administer platform independent Application/Web Server written entirely in JavaTM.

  Products with Linux Versions:

• BulletProof Corporation released a beta version of JDesignerPro 4.0 with support for building wireless enterprise applications.

• CyberStar Computer Corporation announced that they have chosen Intel to supply the main component platform of their new Rack mount server for Internet Service Providers.

• Dot Hill Systems Corp. announced that it has shipped over 100 units of its SANnet product. SANnet is the company's carrier-class storage solution.

• Fujitsu Siemens Computers launched a new version of its WebTransaction middleware software to allow organizations to web-enable their complex mainframe applications, and integrate their existing host data with HTML, XML and Java technologies. A Linux version should be available soon.

• KL Group Inc. announced the release of XRT/gauge, a comprehensive collection of widgets, comprising seven dials and gauges.

• Optio Software Inc. announced the availability of OptioDCS for Red Hat Linux.

• Rainbow Technologies announced that the company has integrated support for Linux throughout the company's CryptoSwift eCommerce acceleration solutions and Rainbow's SentinelLM software license management products.

• REALAX AG announced that all its software products for Virtual Reality and 3D visualization will soon be available on Linux.

• Systar announced its plans for a new version of OmniVision for Red Hat Linux scheduled for release in mid-2000.

• White Pine Software, Inc. announced that it is shipping a new version of the MeetingPoint conference server with support for Red Hat Linux v6.1.

  Partnerships, Investments and Acquisitions:

• 1mage Software, Inc. announced the sale of its Linux-based imaging system to Plastic Dress-Up Co. (PDU). PDU's installation of 1MAGE will run on Red Hat Linux.

• Allaire Corporation and MERANT announced a strategic agreement to integrate MERANT's DataDirect technology with the new Linux versions of ColdFusion.

• Applix announced a partnership with LinuxIT, one of Europe's largest Linux software resellers and distributors. LinuxIT will be the distributor of the Applixware office automation software for Linux.

• Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Automated Learning and Discovery (CALD) received a $560,000 gift of equipment from IBM Corp. DB2 on Linux is included among data management software packages.

• Corel announced the acquisition of a 30% stake in Newlix, an Ottawa-based company that produces Linux-based server software.

• Flame Petro-Minerals Corp. acquired LinuxWizardry, Inc. LinuxWizardry, Inc. has commenced building a Linux-based, low-cost router that provides a simple drag-and-drop JAVA user interface for configuration protocol routing called the "LinuxWizardry Router."

• The Hartcourt Companies Inc. announced that it has reached an agreement with Swartz Private Equity, LLC of Atlanta, for an additional $10 million equity line funding, thus increasing the total funding from Swartz to $35 million. The reason for the increase was the planned acquisition of a Linux Internet operation in China.

• iEntertainment Network announced it will launch a co-branded gaming site with Red Hat, Inc.

• Infomatec AG has formed a strategic alliance with the UK software and IT services company, Pericom Plc. The new agreement enables the Augsburg Software Group to offer terminal-emulation for IBM 3270E and 5250E terminals for its Linux-based platform Java Network Technology.

• Liberate Technologies and TiVo, Inc. announced that they have signed a definitive licensing agreement to incorporate Liberate's TV Navigator on future versions of TiVo's Linux-based Personal TV reference platform.

• Linuxcare, Inc. and VMware, Inc. announced a partnership to share their technical and marketing expertise.

• Microtest Inc. and Micro Design International Inc. announced a long-term integrator partnership. The initial products to be integrated will include Microtest's Linux-based products: DiscZerver, an integration-ready, optical storage imaging appliance, and LinuxZerver, a customizable, high-performance, network-attached application delivery platform.

• MODCOMP Inc. announced the award of a contract with UCAR International to upgrade their industrial process control computer system. MODCOMP will use it's Linux version of ScadaBase.

• Rare Ventures announced it has invested in Quicknet Technologies, Inc. Quicknet's products include the Internet PhoneJACK and Internet PhoneCARD hardware and the Internet SwitchBoard software for Windows and Linux PCs.

• RSA Security Inc. announced that Macmillan USA, Inc. has signed an agreement to license RSA Security software for use in a Linux-based secure Web server the publisher plans to include in several of its upcoming Linux software products.

  Other:

• Andover.Net announced the expansion of its products and promotions for ThinkGeek, the site for Linux/Open Source-related products.

• Applix, Inc. announces the launch of a new web site, www.SmartBeak.com, designed to bring together the support and collaboration needs of Open Source Software developers and users.

• CMP Media, Inc. announced that its upcoming Computer Telephony Expo Spring 2000 (March 7 - 9 at the Los Angeles Convention Center), will feature a three-day IP Telephony for the Enterprise conference. Topics include the future impact of Linux in IP telephony.

• CNET announced the launch of its CNET Linux Center, "the ultimate Linux destination." Thus far it looks like a repackaging of their (considerable) Linux news content.

• Cygnus Solutions - now owned by Red Hat, has announced a software development environment for the Nintendo "GameBoy Advance."

• EBIZ Enterprises, Inc. announced that Jeffrey Rassas, CEO and founder of EBIZ Enterprises, is currently featured on Wall Street NewsCast (click on "new interviews"). Mr. Rassas discusses the evolution and future of the Linux operating system and TheLinuxStore.com.

• GraphOn Corporation reported record revenues for 1999.

• Maxspeed Corporation, a provider of Linux desktop devices, announced the appointment of John I. ("Jack") Anderson as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Anderson joins Maxspeed from VA Linux Systems.

• Red Hat Europe announced the "Red Hat Certified Reseller Programme." As far as can be told from the press release, membership in this program means that the reseller has at least one "Red Hat Certified Engineer" on its staff.

• TurboLinux claims to be the number one operating system platform in China for the past four months.

• TurboLinux announced the availability in China of nationwide TurboLinux Certified Engineer training courses. The curriculum, three initial courses designed to prepare students to meet Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certification standards, will be offered in China's 10 largest cities through a network of 15 authorized TurboLinux instructors.

• UC Berkeley Extension will offer two short courses in programming for the "real" world: "Real-Time Programming for Embedded Systems" and "32-Bit Real-Time Operating Systems with an Emphasis on Linux."

• UKLINUX.NET, claiming to be "the UK's first ISP specifically aimed at users of Linux and other Open Source/Free Software," has announced its existence. All profits will be put back into the free software community.

Section Editor: Rebecca Sobol.

Next: Linux in the news