Novell, Inc., today announced it has acquired privately held
Ximian of Boston, Mass. This acquisition expands Novell’s capacity
to provide flexible information solutions to customers
worldwide.
The acquisition of Ximian expands Novell’s ability to support
Linux solutions as the company adds best-of-breed Linux desktop,
groupware and management technologies, and welcomes several of the
open source community’s leading visionaries to the Novell® team
and a strong core of Linux developers into the Novell fold.
Novell gains, and will carry forward, two key Linux market
initiatives through Ximian that reinforce Novell’s commitment to
the open source community: GNOME, a project to provide a
full-featured Linux desktop, and Mono, designed to allow
applications developed using Microsoft .NET to run on Linux, UNIX,
Windows and other platforms. The combination of Novell’s network
and infrastructure services with Ximian’s Linux solutions provides
compelling new value to customers leveraging the power of open
source technologies.
“Linux is the fastest-growing platform in the market today
because it helps customers meet challenges effectively, both from a
cost and a performance perspective,” said Jack Messman, chairman
and CEO of Novell. “But customers still face two key business
issues: how to provide cost-effective management and maintenance of
Linux systems, and how to deploy and support low-cost Linux
desktops within the organization. Novell now delivers
market-leading solutions for both. Just as important, Ximian brings
Novell unparalleled Linux expertise, helping us not only deliver
more value to customers, but also strengthening our ability to work
with and leverage open source initiatives more constructively.”
“Together, Novell and Ximian offer tremendous benefits for
customers,” said David Patrick, president and CEO of Ximian, now
general manager of what will be called the Novell Ximian Services
business unit at Novell. “Our breakthrough management and desktop
products strongly complement Novell applications on Linux and
Novell Nterprise Linux Services. The global Novell channel,
partnerships with industry leaders and proven customer support will
benefit customers. Novell as an enterprise company is the ideal
choice for us to drive growth for the Linux market as a whole.”
Ximian, a market-leading Linux company founded in 1999, has over
a million users worldwi
de of its desktop and management products aimed at lowering the
total cost of Linux ownership for enterprise customers. Ximian Red
Carpet is the de facto standard for software updating across
leading Linux distributions. Red Carpet Enterprise software
provides enterprise customers with centralized software management
of Linux servers and desktops. Over time, Red Carpet Enterprise
will be tightly integrated into the Novell ZENworks product line,
leveraging Novell directory services and policies management
functionality.
Ximian Desktop 2 (XD2) is a complete Linux desktop environment
and a tightly integrated suite of Linux desktop applications that
delivers robust support for Windows file formats, networks and
standards. Ximian Evolution software seamlessly integrates e-mail,
calendaring, contact management and task lists in one easy-to-use
application that connects to popular corporate communications
architectures like Microsoft Exchange, Sun ONE and, soon, Novell
GroupWise via client-side Ximian Connector extensions. These
solutions, supporting Red Hat, SuSE and other leading Linux
distributions, make Ximian software a strong choice for
organizations using Linux desktops within a mixed Windows/Linux
computing environment.
“This acquisition allows us to pursue our shared goal, and that
is to reduce the barriers to Linux adoption in the enterprise. This
combination can do just that, and make Novell the number one Linux
solutions company in the process,” said Nat Friedman, Ximian
co-founder and senior vice president, now vice president of
research and development in the Novell Ximian Services business
unit at Novell. “We’re extremely excited to join with Novell to
pursue a shared vision of leadership in a full range of integrated
Linux desktop and server software for the enterprise, backed by
world-class management tools, support and services. We also believe
that Novell’s commitment and resources can help further energize a
very dynamic open source development community.”
Ximian plays an important leadership role in the broader open
source community and helps drive several key open source projects.
Ximian’s founders Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman, well-known open
source visionaries, helped found the GNOME and Mono projects, both
initiatives they will continue to lead at Novell.
The GNOME project, initiated by de Icaza in 1997 and involving
hundreds of developers globally, is creating a full-featured open
source desktop, including a set of development tools; file, desktop
management and help systems; and a set of applications, including
spreadsheets, word processors, Web browsers, image editors and
music players. The GNOME Foundation, which includes Friedman, de
Icaza and other Ximian employees on its board, boasts IBM, HP, Sun
and Red Hat among its members.
The Mono project is an open source effort led by Ximian to
provide developers with open source tools for building
cross-platform Microsoft .NET applications that can run on Linux,
UNIX, and other support platforms. More than 150 developers
worldwide contribute to Mono, including a range of companies
building commercial products using Mono technology.
De Icaza, CTO of Ximian and now chief technology officer for the
Novell Ximian Services business unit of Novell, said, “It’s a huge
step forward for the open source community to gain strong support
from a company like Novell. Initiatives like GNOME and Mono will
only improve with Novell’s resources behind them. Novell has
already made a strong commitment to open source with its recent
decision to put the full range of its network services on Linux and
its inclusion of MySQL, Apache and other open source technologies
in NetWare. Ximian’s leadership within the open source community
along with Novell’s strength and reputation in the enterprise
market are a powerful combination that will help move GNOME and
Mono forward.”
The acquisition of Ximian was an all-cash transaction and is not
expected to have a material effect on Novell’s financial statements
in the current fiscal year. No further details as to the specific
terms of the transaction are being disclosed.