“Linuxcare, the San Francisco-based technical support
organization for Linux, announced last week that it had received
$32.5 million in second-round financing and acquired The Puffin
Group, noted for its expertise in moving Linux to Hewlett-Packard
servers.”
“The two moves did little to dampen expectations that Linuxcare
is moving toward an initial public offering. After hugely
successful IPOs by Linux distributor Red Hat and Linux server
makers Cobalt Networks and VA Linux Systems earlier this year,
speculation has begun to focus on Linuxcare – a virtual unknown a
year ago – as the next Linux company that will run up massive
market capitalization….”
“Linuxcare is establishing a network of 50 Linux support
personnel around the world to provide around-the-clock Linux
support. Its technical support staff will deal with problems with
Red Hat, SuSE, TurboLinux or any other distribution of the open
source operating system. And it is busy building four data
centers to provide the computing power needed to offer that
support, said Pat Lambs, vice president of service solutions at
Linuxcare.”