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| Mandrake and Conectiva Merge |
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Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 01:28 PM EST
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I just got a notice from Mandrakesoft that it is merging with Conectiva. You can read the press
release on their site, and I have reproduced the heart of it here as well. I thought you might like to know. I love Mandrakesoft, because they care about the desktop, and I find this news very exciting. I personally think US companies have been making a mistake concentrating so heavily only on the server and embedded space. There will be a conference call in about 25 minutes for the press:Mandrakesoft will host a conference call to cover the event on Thursday, 24 February 2005 at 19:00 GMT (20:00 Paris Time, 14:00 AM EST, 11:00 AM PST, 16:00 Brazil (São Paulo)).
To participate by phone, please dial one of these numbers 10-15 minutes prior to the call:
866.682.6100 (Toll-free) from the United States
+1-201.499.0416 from outside the United States (example: from France, call 001-201 499 0416)
Participants will include François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandrakesoft, and Jaques Rosenzvaig, CEO of Conectiva. The conference call will start with a presentation, and then will host a Q&A session.
Callers should ask to be connected to the Mandrakesoft-Conectiva merger conference call. UPDATE: I listened in. François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandrakesoft, and Jaques Rosenzvaig, CEO of Conectiva both spoke and then took questions. They will have a convergence product by the end of the year. They'll announce the name in about a month. Focus appears to be primarily business, but the desktop will also remain important. Mandrakesoft gets most of its revenue from selling products, not services. Conectiva does services. What the plan going forward will be wasn't clear in the teleconference, and my telephone was acting up, so emailed a followup question to Gael Duval, who says, "We are going to merge all our product & services lines progressively." The merged company will remain fully compliant with the principles of Open Source, Mr. Bancilhon said, and they are a GPL company. There will continue to be a free version. Mandrakesoft had no presence in South America before. That is where Conectiva is stronger, obviously, and in S.A., the issue isn't upgrading; it's deployment of any technology, Rosenzvaig said, and the first goal there is business. He said the government there in Brazil is already fond of Mandrakesoft's software. Also, Conectiva is knowledgeable in the embedded area. Maureen O'Gara had it in her head that Red Hat had an equity position in Conectiva, but she was disabused of that notion. The headquarters for the merged company will be in Paris. With respect to SCO, Conectiva was asked if there were any contract issues still hanging in the air from United Linux. The answer given was no, that there was a contractual relationship with SCO regarding development of a common product, which obviously isn't happening. That was the contract and there are no issues left, they said. Rosenzvaig also pointed out that in S.A., software is not IP-driven.
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Linux companies Mandrakesoft and Conectiva Announce Definitive Merger Agreement 2005-02-24
Paris, France; Curitiba, Brazil; February 24th , 2005 - Mandrakesoft, the number one European Linux company, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Conectiva, the number one Linux company in Brazil and Latin America. This acquisition is expected to increase significantly Mandrakesoft's size and R&D capabilities.
Conectiva, founded in 1995, employs 60 people and has offices in Curitiba, São Paulo and Manaus, Brazil. The company had 1.7 million EUR (2.2 million USD) of revenues in their latest audited fiscal year, and reached break-even during the latest fiscal half-year. Conectiva has gained significant recognition for its adaptive approach to technology development for corporations, communities and large partners in the communication and technology sector in Latin America.
Providing Linux services for corporations since its inception, Conectiva has a wide range of projects including ATM and teller solutions for financial institutions, infrastructure for the government, and a complete range of Linux solutions sold through major retail stores in Brazil. Conectiva's technical achievements are also well known in the worldwide Linux community. Among them, the RPM port of apt-get (apt-rpm) and the new Smart Package Manager are just two examples of Conectiva's accomplishments. In this context, Conectiva has long been sought by larger technology and communication industry players to develop specialized solutions, including embedded devices.
Well-known customers include public sector and large accounts such as HSBC, Casas Bahia, IBM, HP, Siemens, White Martins-Praxair, Generali, and the Brazilian Army, Navy and Air Force. Examples of large deployments by Conectiva include 15,000 desktops and 800 servers in the São Paulo public schools. Conectiva also has a strong position in the training business, training more than 15,000 people each year through its network of partners throughout Brazil.
Mandrakesoft, founded in 1998, is the internationally recognized number one European Linux company. Mandrakesoft has built its business by designing and delivering user-friendly Linux products to both individuals and businesses, building a user base of more than 4 million users. In its latest fiscal year, Mandrakesoft's revenues reached 5.18 million EUR (6.7 million USD) for a net income of 1.39 million EUR (1.8 million USD).
Mandrakesoft is also recognized as offering increasingly strong business solutions in both Europe and the USA. These solutions include server and desktop products for corporations, dedicated support, training, and online services such as Mandrakeclub and Mandrakeonline. Mandrakesoft's customers include such prestigious corporations as Carrefour, France Telecom, HP, Macif, Total, Verizon, and many government agencies including several French ministries.
Mandrakesoft is acquiring all shares of Conectiva for a total amount of 1.79 million EUR (2.3 million USD) in stock.
Both Mandrakesoft and Conectiva are profitable companies. The resulting corporation will benefit from several synergies by sharing development resources, commercial prospects and larger economies of scale, resulting in improved development potential for both companies.
"This merger is a great opportunity for Mandrakesoft and Conectiva. It is clear that it will strengthen us by creating commercial and technological value", said Jaques Rosenzvaig, CEO of Conectiva. "The merger also positions the resulting company as a leading worldwide provider of Linux."
"Combining the two businesses enables us to extend the scope of our offering and address more businesses by compounding development and commercial assets, resulting in strong synergies", added François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandrakesoft. "Mandrakesoft and Conectiva are dedicated to delivering innovative and quality products with a high level of personalized services to our customers. Our aggregated strengths will enhance extensive deployments, thus providing greater opportunity for continued expansion."
Conectiva's acquisition is in line with Mandrakesoft's strategy to expand through both organic and external growth. Besides the commercial potential to address the Latin American market, the choice of Conectiva was strongly based on the cultural fit which exists between the two companies.
Mandrakesoft and Conectiva are both founding Members of the Linux Core Consortium (LCC), which has recently started development of a common implementation of the Linux Standard Base. The combined companies will build their next corporate releases on top of the LCC implementation.
Conference call for press:
Mandrakesoft will host a conference call to cover the event on Thursday, 24 February 2005. To participate, please check the URL below: http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/event
About Conectiva
The company was founded in 1995 and is the pioneer in the distribution of Linux and Open Source in Portuguese, Spanish and English for all of Latin America. Besides customized Linux distributions for the Latin American market, Conectiva develops a series of products and additional services directed at the market demand for Open Source Tools, consulting services, training and technical support, including books and manuals. The company is also sought after its highly regarded OEM programs, application ports and training kits.
http://www.conectiva.com.br
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 01:43 PM EST |
| Cool, I love Mandrake and I do buy every single release of it. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 01:45 PM EST |
This is great news. Notice they are free of SCO, Microsoft, and the litigation
happy US.
k[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 01:56 PM EST |
> I personally think US companies have been making a mistake
> concentrating so heavily only on the server and embedded
> space.
I disagree. I think it shows that many of the companies are well grounded and
realistic enough to know that the desktop is a lost cause. Many of the things
that are done on a desktop today are poorly planned at best, yet thats what the
consumers want (and before you go off on a Microsoft rant - this just isn't
Microsoft's fault - its everybody who thought they would put a stake in the
ground and come up with a "standard"). Linux companies who think they
can compete in the desktop market will spend millions of dollars and hundreds of
thousands of man hours to gain paltry 1 or 2 % market shares, if they're lucky.
Furthermore, the ol' clunky desktop is slowly moving out of Dodge. Thin clients
are starting to gain acceptance once again in the business place, and at home,
people want to be more integrated and more mobile. All this translates into two
things: servers and embedded software. Thats where the excitement and money
will be for Linux companies in the forseeable future.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Desktop good! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:09 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: markpmc on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:15 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:18 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: salomon on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:22 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:26 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: lgrant on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:32 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: PJ on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:55 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: seanlynch on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:32 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:35 PM EST
- banks - Authored by: gdeinsta on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:50 PM EST
- banks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 05:13 PM EST
- banks - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 06:04 PM EST
- banks - Authored by: Superbiskit on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 04:35 PM EST
- Desktop bad? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:45 PM EST
- Desktop bad? - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 04:03 PM EST
- Desktop bad! (i disagree...) - Authored by: spamhippy on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:54 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: marbux on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:18 PM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:46 PM EST
- Thin client: yesterday's good idea - Authored by: tysonwright on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:50 PM EST
- Desktop can be improved - Authored by: ak on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 04:06 PM EST
- No Thin Clients for home users - Authored by: r_a_trip on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 06:55 AM EST
- It's not a question of "either" thin client "or" fat client - Authored by: morsch on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 09:10 AM EST
- Desktop bad! - Authored by: odysseus on Saturday, February 26 2005 @ 02:32 AM EST
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| Authored by: Naich on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 01:56 PM EST |
<a href="http://www.example.com">Link</a>
Mind you, this isn't totally off-topic because I am using Mandrake to post
this... Excellent distro.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 01:58 PM EST |
Mandrake was my first Linux distro in 1999 (Mandrake 6.5),
and although built on Redhat bones, it's good.
The box is still running (backend to my web server here at
home), and has an impressive uptime at the moment:
[nick@486Linux nick]$ last -xf /var/run/utmp runlevel
runlevel (to lvl 3) Sun Oct 14 16:07 -
18:56 (1229+03:48)
utmp begins Sun Oct 14 16:07:40 2001
Obviously it has had updates, but it still runs the same
old kernel (as it is behind all the frontend stuff, and
only me has access to it):
[nick@486Linux nick]$ uname -a
Linux 486Linux 2.2.13-7mdk #1 Wed Sep 15 18:02:18 CEST
1999 i486 unknown
Nick :) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Asynchronous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:15 PM EST |
Novell gobbled up SuSe and added some serious branding and activation BS (though
for what I'm not sure), RedHat dropped the lower end market and focused on the
enterprise level, now Mandrake is being gobbled up by Conectiva. Lindows got
sued to death and finally gave up that fight, after changing it's name I haven't
heard much about them. I have heard that Redhat is sort of back peddleing and
putting more support behind that Fedora abortion, so it may turn out to be more
stable and show less churn.
Dunno... maybe ClusterKnoppix is the way to go.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Just use Linux, that's what :) - Authored by: TiddlyPom on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:37 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: seanlynch on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:40 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:48 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: PJ on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:58 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:10 PM EST
- Now Debian. - Authored by: Adam B on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:13 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: PJ on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:20 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:22 PM EST
- What you're witnessing is an evolving industry - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:37 PM EST
- are you joking? - Authored by: warner on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:43 PM EST
- *Sigh.. now what. - Authored by: stuart_b on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 12:41 PM EST
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| Authored by: seanlynch on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:27 PM EST |
This is great news. I was worried about Conectiva after the downfall of United
Linux.
SuSE was the Big player in that group. Novell is really putting some weight
behind them in the marketplace. I hope they reach sustainable profitability in
Europe and North America
Turbo Linux seems to be doing well in Japan, China, and Korea (their
associations with Red Flag in hina could become a big deal in the future). I
hope the economic growth in China results in growth for Turbo. They were
profitable in both Japan and China in 2004.
My memory is fuzzy and I can't seem to recall who the North American member of
United Linux was. Some small Linux startup from Utah. Calderon? Calderoo? Its
almost as if they never existed.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: NZheretic on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:51 PM EST |
| Could someone with a windows box please log onto the USPTO On-Line for
Independent Inventors Today, within the next hour!
Join the On-Line for
Independent Inventors
The digichat java applet does not work with any
combination of Linux Galeon/Mozilla/Firefox jdk1.5.0/j2re1.4.2_07 or MacOSX
Firefox/Safari.Please someone log on to the chat room and ask the following
verbatum: I understand that the discovery of prior art and the
evaluation of the obviousness of an invention are difficult tasks for the United
States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) patent application examiners to
perform. The percentage of patents being overturned under the scrutiny of the
courts leads me to believe that the process is not quite as accurate as could be
desired. In a few recent cases the existence of publicly accessible digital
content has played a part in disclosing prior art. The public, technical and
scientific communities use of Internet has to a large extent replaced printed
media such as journals for the public disclosure of new ideas. To what extent
does the current USPTO patent application examination process take into account
public accessible website content? Do the patent examiners currently use
Internet search engines such as Google ( http://www.google.com ) to locate
instances of prior art? Is the changeable and unverifiable nature of some
digital content a barrier to its being cited as prior art in the patent
application examination process?
The USPTO patent application examiners
task could be made more reliable if the examiners could consult one or more
public online registries that document cases of prior art and public
discoveries. The online registries could provide a means for the public to
retroactively point to cases of preexisting prior art for pending patent
applications and a means to proactively document publicly known ideas and
concepts. Although websites and digitally stored content in general is
changeable, individual entries and changes in an online registry could be
legally authenticated by means of digital timestamping (
http://www.rsasecurity.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2347 ). An online registry could
be hosted by the USPTO as an adjunct to the existing online public patent and
patent pending databases. The USPTO could also publicly recognize other
individual registries hosted by third parties such as a commercial entity or a
non-profit community similar to Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org/ ). An
individual adding an entry to such a publicly online registry does not involve
granting that individual any form of monopoly, therefore the action need not
have any artificial barrier involving fees or payments. Would the existence of
digitally timestamped public content overcome any objections by the USPTO to its
citing as prior art? Has the USPTO any plans to add some form of publicly
accessible feedback mechanism to the patent application process?
It has
been nine years since the USPTO updated the Guidelines for Computer-Related
Inventions (
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/software/analysis/computer.html ).
Since that time has the USPTO undertaken, commissioned or evaluated any studies
on the effects that granting software related patents has had on the progress of
science, useful arts and the software industry in general? If no such study has
been performed or evaluated, why not? Can the USPTO point to any instances where
the granting of software related patents has been an actual benefit to the
progress of science, useful arts and the software industry in general? In a
similar vein, can the USPTO point to any instances where the granting of
business method related patents has been an actual benefit to the progress of
science, useful arts and industry in general?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 02:57 PM EST |
I run all my assorted Linux boxen behind a corporate proxy
and firewall. Yast on Suse (the system I am using to post)
and apt-rpm & Synaptic on Red Hat 9 and Fedora work fine
through the proxy but both Mandrake installs I tried (9.2,
10.0) can't update through the proxy. BTW the proxy is
Squid not some M$ abomination. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: chris_bloke on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:03 PM EST |
I've been using Mandrake since the late 90's and was,
until recently, a Mandrake Club
subscriber and always
liked them. Being from the UK, and
now in Australia I've not had any contact
with Connectiva,
but I wish both companies & their staff all the best in
their new arrangements!
I'm (slowly) moving my Mandrake boxes to
Gentoo now, not
because of anything wrong with Mandrake, more because I
prefer Gentoos package selection and grafting on 3rd party
RPMs or TGZ builds
to get the latest KDE release always
pained me. Oh, and nothing to do with
speed.
PS: NASDAQ has listed SCO as delinquent in its PDF
"List
of
Non-Compliant Companies", for the first time.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: chris_bloke on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 03:29 PM EST |
After the recent networking history story, I read:
Rosenzvaig also pointed out that in S.A., software is not
IP-driven.
and thought "Surely they can't mean OSI?".
Then I realised we had acronym overload.. :-) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 04:18 PM EST |
| Article Here
Microsoft Plans Severe Restrictions on Software Updates, Security Fixes
for Pirated Windows Copies [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 04:32 PM EST |
From the press release I gather that the acquisition price equals Conectiva's
yearly revenues. That does not seem to show a lot of confidence in the near-term
business prospects, does it?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: ssavitzky on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 04:33 PM EST |
Possibly the best thing to come out of this could be wider use of apt for RPM,
which IIRC Conectiva originated.
apt, for those who don't know, is Debian's package tool, and it's highly
addictive.
---
The SCO method: open mouth, insert foot, pull trigger.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- apt for RPM - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 01:31 AM EST
- apt for RPM - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 01:16 PM EST
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| Authored by: mosborne on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 04:36 PM EST |
Having planned and deployed thin clients in settings from small business to
large corporations, I am curious what you think are the issues with thin
clients.
I see no such issues in a corporate setting. I do agree that that would be
privacy issues in a personal setting when the server is based off somewhere, but
that would not apply in a business setting.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 24 2005 @ 06:11 PM EST |
Groklaw:
"Mandrakesoft will host a conference call to cover the event on Thursday,
24 February 2005 at 19:00 GMT (20:00 Paris Time, 14:00 AM EST, 11:00 AM PST,
16:00 Brazil (São Paulo))."
?? 14:00 AM EST ??
Not that it matters anymore.
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| Authored by: Winter on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 03:04 AM EST |
Marcello Tossati
Rik van Riel
Seems Madrake's Linux service would be in the hands of people who know it rather
well.
Rob
---
Philosophy of Science assignment: "Never believe a fact before it has been
confirmed by theory" (A.Eddington)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, February 25 2005 @ 09:02 AM EST |
"They'll announce the name in about a month."
Any candidates for name?
"ManConnect"? . . . Oh wait, that sounds like a gay dating service.
"Madraktiva"?
"Connectdrake"?
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