“Linuxcare may not be among the Linux companies going
public, but it seems to have no trouble getting investments or
finding new ways to spend the cash.
The latest infusion is a $32.5 million investment that will be
used to pay for a major expansion, chief executive Fernand Sarrat
said at a news conference today. The company, based here, sells
Linux technical support and consulting services, competing with hot
start-ups like Red Hat and VA Linux Systems as well as more
established companies retooling to accommodate the ‘open source’
operating system, such as Santa Cruz Operation and IBM.
Linuxcare also got a new chief financial officer, as Sarrat
replaced Anthony Pollace with Christian Paul, the former CFO of
Cloudscape, a Java database company owned by Informix.”
“…Linuxcare wants to get its business in better shape before
it goes public. The company isn’t profitable and won’t be for the
next year as Linuxcare pays for aggressive hiring and expansion,
Sarrat said in an interview. Shunning the method pioneered by
Internet companies, Sarrat is focusing on building up the business
before Linuxcare goes public, instead of using the proceeds of an
IPO to fund that expansion.”