“Red Hat today confirmed rumors that it was, in fact, acquiring
Cygnus Solutions in a transaction valued at approximately $674
million. The deal involves a stock for stock merger through which
Red Hat will issue as many as 6.6 million shares for all
outstanding Cygnus securities. While the agreement is still subject
to approval by Cygnus shareholders, there is little reason to doubt
that the deal will go through….”
“Cygnus Solutions has been a major player in the
commercialization of open source software since the company’s
founding in 1989. The company’s tools and products, such as Cold
Fusion and the GNUPro Toolsuite are targeted for enterprise,
Internet and embedded applications. Red Hat has been among the most
recognizable Linux companies over the last year providing both its
own distribution and services to Linux users worldwide.”
“Red Hat’s acquisition of Cygnus Solutions also confirms Red
Hat’s intention to compete in the embedded systems marketplace, in
which Caldera Systems (among Linux companies) has staked a major
claim. Embedded systems, which includes handheld devices,
PDA’s “smart phones” and other intelligent, information devices,
are seen by many in the industry as the next frontier of computing
appliances.”