Planet Lowyat

Practical Technology has learned from several sources that Linspire, the San Diego, Calif-based Linux distributor is being bought out by Xandros, the Canadian desktop Linux vendor.

In an announcement that was sent out today, June 30, to Linspire stockholders, CEO Larry Kettler wrote that the stockholders had decided to sell all of Linspire’s assets. This deal specifically includes Linspire, Freespire, and the company’s distribution agnostic CNR (Click ‘N Run) desktop installation platform.

This move is not being greeted with enthusiasm by all of Linspire stockholders’. Kevin Carmony, former CEO of Linspire, wrote on his blog, “In classic Michael Robertson [Linspire's founder and chief owner] form, he has once again completely disregarded the 100 some-odd shareholders of Linspire by pulling off this deal without a shareholder meeting. Most states require shareholder approval of any merger or reorganization of a corporation, or the sale or transfer of all or substantially all of the corporation’s assets. Even if a company only has 1 minority shareholder, there should be a shareholder meeting and the acquisition explained to all shareholders. What do Linspire shareholders get in place of a shareholder meeting? This completely worthless notice in the mail.”

Carmony, who has since switched to Ubuntu for his Linux needs, went on, “This will end up being a completely insignificant event for Linspire shareholders, and the end for Linspire customers. I predict this was done to: 1) help Robertson drain the company of its cash and resources. When I left Linspire, we had a very profitable year and the company had millions in the bank. I predict Robertson has moved this money to himself, family, and his other companies, leaving Linspire’s minority shareholders with nothing. 2) help Robertson save face by issuing a “Linspire Acquired by Xandros!” press release, instead of living with the public humiliation that Linspire failed under his leadership. Such a press release will of course be meaningless, unless the acquisition was substantial. As a shareholder, I will eventually find out. 3) Give Xandros (also seemingly on life support) a press release, and perhaps some way for them to spin this to investors to raise money.

Since Carmony left the firm in the summer of 2007, Linspire was successful in getting the long delayed CNR out the door. In addition, Linspire made a deal with Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, and Mint, to offer their users easily installed software through the CNR system. However, the company’s CNR development has proceeded at a very slow pace and users were complaining about the lack of availability of up-to-date Linux software from the service.

Xandros, with its distribution’s tracing its roots back to 1999’s Corel Linux, can claim to be the oldest desktop Linux distributor. More to the point, with its deal with Asus to pre-install Xandros Linux on Asus’ amazingly popular Linux-powered Eee computer line, Xandros has become a very popular Linux distribution. Sources at Xandros have also told Practical Technology that while the company is not making money hand over fist it has been realizing “a very nice revenue stream from its Asus systems.

Neither company, at this time, has confirmed either the deal or the amount that exchanged hands to make it happen. According to a source close to the acquisition, the approximately $1-million loan that Linspire had made to Xandros several years ago did not play a role in this transaction. That loan, the source said, had been settled for pennies on the dollar.

Carmony, however, doesn’t see any real value coming out of the Xandros deal for Linspire stockholders. Carmony told me, “?Before Linspire and Xandros try to spin this into something actually positive, I’d like to offer my Linspire shares to either Michael [Robertson] or Andy Typaldos (Xandros’ CEO) for $.10 a share. That’s 80% less than what it was worth just ten months ago. If this transaction happened at a good valuation, then I’m sure Michael or Andy will be all over my offer, right?”

The former CEO has been hostile towards the company’s leadership for some time. In April, Carmony complained publicly about Linspire not holding a stockholder’s meeting. He then wrote, “We had a top-notch finance team that made sure we always stayed on top of our accounting, audits, financial statements, and compliance to shareholders with properly scheduled and documented board meetings and annual shareholder meetings. Since leaving Linspire, this practice seems to have ended.”

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Finally OpenSUSE 11.0

Sneak Peeks of openSUSE 11.0

• The new installer

openSUSE 11.0 includes a brand-new installer. The Sneak Peek series on openSUSE News shows off some new features, plus an interview with Stephan Kulow!

• Software Management

There have been many improvements and changes to ZYpp, openSUSE’s package management system, including the major improvement: it’s lightning fast! Features an interview with Duncan Mac-Vicar.

• Desktop Effects

openSUSE’s Desktop Effects (Compiz) have been improved, and include many new effects and new features which make running and managing them better! Also includes an interview with Dennis Kasprzyk!

• KDE

In openSUSE 11.0, you get two KDEs for the price of one. Take a look at the new KDE!

• GNOME in openSUSE 11.0

There are many improvements in the new version of GNOME. Vincent Untz talks about the GNOME desktop environment in openSUSE 11.0.

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ASUS confirmed it would be loading the quick-launch Express Gate Splashtop Linux OS onto all of its upcoming motherboards, the software developers behind the distro, DeviceVM, have announcedthat several ASUS notebooks will also include it.

The Asus M70T, M50V, M51T, F8Va, and F8Vr will be the first laptops on the market to include the “rapid-start platform.”

Splashtop comes to ASUS Notebooks

Complete range of ASUS notebook models provide ‘instant-on’ Internet and media access
May 29, 2008 - SAN JOSE, CA - DeviceVM today announced the release of their award winning Splashtop™ software on numerous ASUS notebooks. Splashtop is a light-weight operating system that allows consumers to use their computers seconds after hitting the power button. Models spanning a wide range of segments are to ship with Splashtop pre-installed by ASUS starting in June this year.

“The integration of Splashtop into notebooks represents a big step forward in portable computing, where instant ‘on’ and ‘off’ is essential,” said Mark Lee, co-founder and CEO of DeviceVM. “We are pleased to introduce Splashtop to portable computing together with our partner ASUS.”

Branded “Express Gate” by ASUS, Splashtop software enables users to browse the web, watch videos, listen to music, chat with friends, share photos, and more - just seconds after turning on their PC. Express Gate is already available on a wide range of PC motherboards from ASUS. The notebooks announced today are the first to integrate Express Gate for the broad consumer market, including the M70T, M50V and M51T multimedia series and the stylish F8Va/Vr series.

“ASUS is always committed to bring customers the most innovative solutions,” said Henry Yeh, General Manager, ASUS Notebook Business Unit. “With Express Gate, users will experience a new, fast, and secure way to surf, chat and play on ASUS notebooks for a new computing experience”

**ASUS booth will showcase Express Gate at Computex in Taipei International Convention Center TF1L & 101B, June 3 - 7. Please come by for more information.

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While Novell introduced SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP2, Redhat released the second update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. The Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.2 Update brings broad refresh of hardware support and improved quality, combined with new features and enhancements in areas such as virtualization, desktop, networking, storage & clustering and security.

Enterprise Linux 5.2 Highlights

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 enhancements we are releasing are primarily focused in six areas:

• Virtualization
• Laptop and Desktop improvements
• Encryption and Security
• Cluster & Storage Enhancements
• Networking & IPv6 Enablement
• Servicability

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Today, Novell has announced the availability of its second service pack (SP2) for SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 containing enhancements in virtualization, management, hardware enablement and interoperability.

Important Update:

• Virtualization. With Service Pack 2, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 becomes the first and only Xen-based virtualization solution with full support from Microsoft for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 guests, and the live migration of those guests across physical machines. In addition to the latest version of the leading open source hypervisor, Xen 3.2, SLES 10 SP2 ships with an updated version of virt-manager. This virtual machine management tool provides a summary of all live domains, along with detailed graphical views of virtual machine utilization and performance over time. These virtualization enhancements offer enterprises increased flexibility, and enable them to more quickly and easily manage both their physical and virtual systems.
• Systems Management. SLES 10 SP2 includes updates to the YaST management toolset, including first-boot enhancements and support for the Internet Storage Name Service (iSNS) protocol. It also includes updates to the YaST2 network and storage modules to support new bridge devices, FICON devices for mainframes, and VLANs, as well as support the online resizing of ext3 partitions.
• High Availability. SLES 10 SP2 includes the latest open source failover subsystem technology, Heartbeat 2.1.3, and adds a resource agent for iSCSI initiator, as well as hooks to SAP resource agents. It also includes updated tools for creating and managing file systems using OCFS2, offering improved support for simultaneous write access, and also offers new capabilities for managing XFS and ReiserFS file systems.
• Network Management. Included in SLES 10 SP2 is NetworkManager 0.7.0, for setting up and configuring active network connections. The product also includes support for IPv6, the next generation network layer for packet-switched internetworks.

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