Yesterday we reported on rumours that Xandros would acquire Linspire. The official press release won’t go out until tomorrow, but Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos answered a set of questions about the acquisition, so read on for an inside scoop on the Xandros-Linspire acquisition and what it means for both companies.
Q. What will you be announcing tomorrow?
A: Xandros’ acquisition of Linspire, a pioneer in the commercial desktop Linux marketplace with its easy-to-use commercial Linspire operating system and innovative Linux software delivery service CNR.
Q: How did this deal come about?
A: Xandros and Linspire have had talks at the CEO level over the years about
the possibility of a combination given their historically similar
Debian-based roots and complementary product lines. Such talks accelerated
in late 2007 and culminated in the current agreement.
Q: What are the financial terms of the deal?
A: Like many private commercial transactions, the financial terms of the
agreement are not being disclosed.
Q: Is this an acquisition or a merger?
A: An acquisition.
Q: How many Linspire employees are coming to Xandros?
A: All of the engineering, support, and key sales staff have been retained,
apart from a small number of administrative and related resources, given
redundancy with Xandros in a number of such areas.
Q: Will Linspire CEO Larry Kettler and other Linspire managers be joining
the Xandros management team?
A: Yes, Larry Kettler will be joining our executive management team as VP of
Business Development.
Q: How many employees are on the combined payroll?
A: Xandros has been on a fast growth path for the last couple of years; has
an aggressive headcount and revenue growth plan at this time; and is
currently in heavy hiring mode. We believe that at this point Xandros is
already the third largest Linux Company in the world, and that we may
already be the largest private Linux Company in the world.
Q: Will Linspire’s San Diego office remain opened?
A: Yes.
Q: Will Freespire continue to be maintained as an open source project?
A: Yes.
Q: Will Xandros maintain separate Xandros and Linspire/Freespire lines of
desktop products?
A: Pending further planning, at this point both product lines will be
maintained.
Q: What will happen to existing Linspire/Freespire users?
A: No changes are planned
Q: What, if any, desktop technologies from the two companies will be
combined?
A: No plans are developed yet in that regard.
Q: What are the total sales and profits for the combined company?
A: Since Xandros is privately held, these figures are not publicly
disclosed.
Q: What are the benefits to Xandros from this deal?
A: It provides Xandros with advanced CNR technologies and Linux expertise.
It also enlarges the Xandros customer base and support network.
Q: Is this part of the Xandros expansion into enterprise markets?
A: Yes. This is part of Xandros’ larger plan and vision for being a full
product company to service both the consumer/OEM and enterprise markets.
Q: How is this deal related to last year’s agreement between Xandros and
Microsoft?
A: It is not
Q: How is this affect your Microsoft relationship – were they consulted on
the deal?
A: It will not affect our Microsoft relationship. Xandros has always planned
to continue increasing its product portfolio, and Microsoft understands and
respects our strategy in that regard. On whether Microsoft was consulted,
Xandros is an independent company and consults internally with its board,
management, and advisors, and not with outside parties in making decisions.
Q: What is the organizational structure of the combined organization?
A: Linspire is an independent company, even though it’s a wholly owned
subsidiary of Xandros. At this time Andreas Typaldos, the CEO of Xandros, is
also President of Linspire. Also, the VP of Engineering of Linspire will
have a reporting relationship to Ming Poon, the VP of Engineering of
Xandros.
Q: How does this acquisition affect existing Linspire and Freespire
customers and brands?
A: We believe that it will help them, by making them part of a larger
community of Xandros users, and by providing them with the support of a
large, global, full-product Linux solutions company, with larger product and
technology footprint, and greater development, support, and financial
resources.
Q: Will this result in new/changed product offerings?
A: No plans have been developed yet in that regard.
Q: Will this deal result in tighter integration between Xandros and Linspire
products?
A: Yes.
Q: When can we expect to see re-launched products combining the benefits of
both company’s technologies?
A: Integration of CNR and the Xandros Networks on Xandros and other
platforms will be launched shortly. Additional products to follow.
Q: How will this affect Xandros’ and Linspire’s open source strategies and
plans?
A: It will not.
Q: What will happen to CNR customers using Ubuntu, Red Hat, SUSE, and other
Linux operating systems?
A: No changes planned at this time.
Q: When will CNR provide Xandros support?
A: In July 2008.
Please ask your questions. Each time you are finished talking, type RET twice.
I’m pretty much convinced this interview was actually conducted with an Eliza-inspired chat bot rather than a real-live CEO.
Otherwise, I am always pleased as Linux also-rans merge. Years ago I had a dream of DREGS Linux where all the “other” one man distros merged to form an unholy alliance.
I can still dream..
Edited 2008-07-01 19:25 UTC
I too once had that dream. Now i am hoping that OpenSolaris fills that position. or PC-BSD
>Q: When will CNR provide Xandros support?
>A: In July 2008.
Re Andrea, kante kai kana sovaro test re paidi mou, arpa kolla douleies den einai swstes.
Eugenia, you speak Greek!
Kai den diafono katholou me auto pou grafeis
Mallon biazetai poli o Andreas. Ektos kai an to etoimaze edo kai kairo.
I hope I am wrong, but these canned responses add nothing of value and show no real planning occurred behind this acquisition.
A company that purchases another one and has no real plans yet for what to do with the acquired products and customers is a disaster in the making.
Here’s a few tips for you. C
Create a single online identity for the combined company, with a single product-line. Get your product into admin’s hands so that they can test it just like they currently test Ubuntu, Mandriva, Suse or RHEL through CENTOS.
Shed everything proprietary about Xandros such as its file manager. There is nothing unique about it and it just adds confusion to the market. Work off a single code base and add value by integrating well your file file and groupware server offerings with a standard kde client such as Kontact that any distro can ship. That way, you increase the appeal of your server distribution, which is what most people pay for. And people like consistency, so even if you support a standard kde client, companies will go to you for the whole widget.
Once every other kde-based distro has moved to kde4, which will happen in the next 12 months, Xandros and its file manager will look ancient and archaic. Put all your development resources into stabilizing kde4 and porting any remnant kde3 applications.
And yes, I know kde4 isn’t ready for prime time yet, but you need to get into planning mode and I assure you that by the summer of 2009 kde 4.2 or kde 4.3 will be well supported and stable and the choice of all leading distributions.
Edited 2008-07-01 19:55 UTC
The idea is simple: Xandros needs CNR, the infrastructure, the backend, the tools, etc, for their EeePC distro. Especially for a storage-space challenged device like the Eee it’s important to be able to slim it down and easily add those stuff later on.
There’s rumors flying around that Asus’s shopping for another distro and if it takes CNR to keep that cash cow, it’s in Xandros’ best interest to acquire it.
Funny thing you say that; because while I’ve never used Xandros, every Xandros user I’ve met said their file manager was their killer feature.
Having been the President of Linspire for six years and their CEO for two, I can tell you that this Q&A has a lot of “spin.” For my “color” on this, visit my blog:
http://kevincarmony.blogspot.com/2008/07/xandros-linspire-here-come…
Kevin Carmony
Former CEO, Linspire
Well I’m not sure what is REALLY going on here. Personally I have no stake in either company so could care less. I did try Xandros back in its heyday (even used Corel Linux which it was originally AFAIK) and while it was decent it offered nothing that made me want to pay for an upgrade. I think all the current distros (Ubuntu especially) probably surpass thsi combined company in features and users by now. My only concern is for a product that was also recently purchases by Xandros, Scalix email server. I implemented this product at my company a year or so ago and am concerned that its future is now tied to Xandros which seem to have a sketchy existance to say the least. Oh well. We’ll see what happens. I may be looking at Zimbra (unless MS buys Yahoo) or (sadly) Exchange again in the near future.
Edited 2008-07-01 20:51 UTC
Look at the product I resell, Desknow
http://www.desknow.com
Runs on Linux, Unix and Windows.
No, Really? Between the no holds barred questions and the informative, specific answers I was convinced I’d read an honest account of the bright future of one of the world leaders in Linux desktop solutions.
Short version: You’re bitter.
Long version: You present some interesting bits of information but I’m not really convinced that you’re more trustworthy than the other party. You can hardly be called impartial. Although you are more specific than the official press release, erm “Q&A”, which is helpful.
Yes, Kevin, we know who you are. But why should we care what you think? You’ve come to the wrong forum for that.
Translation: Expect many angry blog entries to be posted as news stories.
Translation: Expect many self-congratulatory press releases written in market-speak to be posted as news stories.
Translation: When we submitted the news to Forbes and Business Week they didn’t care. So we are looking for a news forum which does.
My advice, humbly offered: Keep looking.
—
Edit: Sincere apologies for the poor subject line. I wish the forum would warn when one posts without providing a title.
Edited 2008-07-01 21:20 UTC
I hope I’m wrong, but I believe that Xandros will leave the Linspire customer base out in the cold.
This opinion is based on a the previous acquisition of Lycoris by Mandriva in 2005. The CEO of Lycoris, Joseph Cheek, was given a position with Mandriva and was never heard from again. Poof! The former Lycoris customer base was treated quite poorly by Mandriva. Many who contributed refused to be treated poorly my Mandriva and moved on to greener pastures.
For years Lindows/Linspire had the attention of many. Like ’em or love ’em, they were much talked about. They did a lot for the average users who sincerely enjoyed Lindows & Linspire.
Linspire’s user & forum populations seem far less active compared to last year. Was this change related to Kevin Carmony’s departure around the same period? I can’t say, but the two events seem to coincide.
In the last year, has Linspire been an innovative company? Not in my mind and I’ve seen nothing noteworthy.
Linspire has become less & less significant to the degree that this acquisition will not have any impact other than their present customer base soon being abandoned by Xandros.
Funny thought: Will a name change happen? How does “Xanspire” sound? Maybe “Lindros”? (sorry – couldn’t resist)
I always wondered what happened to Joe Cheek. Funny you mentioned this, because there is some guy from Lycoris posting in the comments on the linked article.
On the two companies:
I remember reading an article about a Xandros lawsuit, but can’t seem to find it on Google. EDIT: Found it! See http://www.linux.com/feature/35926
On the demise of Lycoris:
And later:
I remember SME Server briefly went to Lycoris before Ruffdogs became its corporate sponsor, but I don’t know what he means about a let-down.
Anyhow, interesting stuff if he really is ex-Lycoris. A quick Google search suggests he may have been.
Edited 2008-07-03 00:49 UTC