Lineo

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Lineo
ProductsEmbedix, DR-DOS
Number of employees
14 (1999)
50 (2000)[2]
350 (ca. 2001)

Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999.[3][4][5][6][7]

History

Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998.[8] Caldera Thin Clients' original President and CEO was Roger Alan Gross,[8] who resigned in January 1999. In April 1999, Caldera Thin Clients released the no longer needed sources to GEM and ViewMAX under the GNU General Public License (GPL).[9]

In July 1999,

Caldera Thin Clients decided on a major refocus on Linux and consequently changed its name to Lineo.[7]

Lineo licensed a stripped down

Caldera Systems and named it Embedix.[7] They continued to maintain the former Caldera Thin Clients sales office in Taipei in 1999. In January 2000, Lineo reincorporated in Delaware
.

Lineo's technologies fully owned were well ahead of competitors' products in the embedded system portion.[7] These technologies included:

This combination of technologies allowed Caldera Thin Clients to offer a full

high end, high availability systems.[13]

Lineo's president and CEO, when it reformed under the new name, became

Bryan Wayne Sparks,[3]
who also had been one of the original founders of Caldera, Inc., in 1994. At the time of its creation, Lineo had 14 employees.

Lineo's main product was

Caldera Systems, Inc., another subsidiary of Caldera, Inc.[3][8][7]

Another product was

Caldera UK Ltd. between 1996 and 1999 and originally acquired from Novell by Caldera, Inc., on 23 July 1996.[14][7]

Through its acquisitions Lineo also had a range of products in many different product categories.

Through a series of acquisitions and mergers, Lineo eventually ballooned to a peak of about 350 employees, with offices in seven countries. The companies that it acquired or merged with were:

  • Zentropix – realtime Linux specialists
  • Rt-Control Inc. – uClinux creators, very small board (uCdimm) vendors
  • Moreton Bay – VPN/Router vendor (located in Brisbane, Australia)
  • United Systems Engineering (USE) – Japanese Linux consulting company
  • Fireplug – Canadian Linux consulting company (ThinLinux product)
  • Inup – High availability Linux
  • Embedded Power Corporation – Realtime and
    DSP
    OS (RTXC product)

Decline

In October 2001, Lineo refreshed and expanded a free license for the redistribution and modification of original Digital Research binaries and sources related to CP/M and MP/M through "The Unofficial CP/M Web site"[15][16][17][18] a license originally issued by Caldera in 1997.[19][20][21]

After some assets were auctioned off in April 2002, by July 2002 the company had reformed as

Embedix division was purchased and absorbed by Motorola's Metrowerks.[23][24][25]

The remaining Digital Research assets fell back to the investor Canopy Group, and parts of the DR-DOS sources were acquired by DeviceLogics in 2002.

Parts of the embedded modules and uClinux software assets (formerly Rt-Control Inc.) were acquired by Arcturus Networks Inc. in 2002.[26]

The router division (formerly Moreton Bay) spun out as SnapGear, and was later acquired by CyberGuard and then

Secure Computing, and Secure Computing was acquired by McAfee
and as of 2008 was still producing the SnapGear brand of VPN/routers.

Lineo Japan, a former Japanese acquisition and at one time wholly owned subsidiary, United System Engineers,[27] Inc. (USE), now trades as Lineo Solutions.

See also

  • Caldera Systems Smallfoot
  • HP Jornada X25

References

  1. ^ "SEC Form S-1 filing". Archived from the original on 2022-02-25.
  2. ^ Collins, Lois M.; Nii, Jenifer (2000-01-16). "Settlement fuels Caldera 'family' - Orem company is 'settling up' with spinoffs thriving". Deseret News. Archived from the original on 2019-11-30. Retrieved 2019-11-30.
  3. ^ a b c Caldera, Inc. (1999-07-20). "Embedded Linux moved to top priority at Lineo, Inc. formerly known as Caldera Thin Clients, Inc." (Press release). Lindon, UT, USA. Archived from the original on 2017-06-25. Retrieved 2017-06-24.
  4. ^ Smith, Tony (1999-07-20). "Caldera Thin Clients renamed to focus on embedded Linux - Lineo, Lineo -- wherefore art thou, Lineo?". The Register. Archived from the original on 2018-08-22. Retrieved 2018-02-13.
  5. ^ SB (2020-01-08) [2004-04-03]. "Development of Linux". Operating system documentation project. Archived from the original on 2019-10-02. Retrieved 2020-02-02.
  6. Eklektix, Inc. Archived
    from the original on 2019-10-12. Retrieved 2020-02-02.
  7. ^
    embedded Linux
    company. […]
  8. ^
    PRNewswire. Archived from the original
    on 2017-06-24. Retrieved 2017-06-24.
  9. Caldera bought the GEM sources from Novell along with the DR-DOS
    in 1996, at the time noting that they may develop GEM into a platform for mobile computers and thin clients. However, these plans were dropped, and GEM was instead released into the open-source community.
  10. ^ "embedix Browser - Internet connectivity for set-top boxes, kiosks and hand-held devices" (PDF) (Product flyer). Lineo, Inc. 2000-04-26. BREMBRW02.qxd. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2000-08-16. Retrieved 2019-07-14. (2 pages)
  11. Caldera, Inc. 1998. Archived from the original
    on 1999-05-08. Retrieved 2020-02-28.
  12. Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. 1998-05-10 [1998-02-17]. Archived from the original on 2020-02-08. Retrieved 2020-02-08. [1][2][3][4] (NB. Self-extracting archive
    DRWEBDEM.EXE (1387560 bytes) contains DRWEBDEM.IMG, a bootable 1.44 MB floppy disk image file.)
  13. ^ a b Lehrbaum, Rick (2000-05-23). "An interview with Lineo CEO, Bryan Sparks". LinuxDevices.com. Archived from the original on 2000-10-25. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
  14. ISSN 0113-1494. CMPWNZ. Archived from the original
    on 2018-08-23. Retrieved 2018-02-13.
  15. Bryan Sparks […]{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link
    )
  16. ^ Chaudry, Gabriele "Gaby" (ed.). "The Unofficial CP/M Web Site". Archived from the original on 2016-02-03. Retrieved 2016-02-03.
  17. ^ Gasperson, Tina (2001-11-26). "CP/M collection is back online with an Open Source licence - Walk down memory lane". The Register. Archived from the original on 2017-09-01. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
  18. CMP Media LLC: 71–73. #361. Archived from the original on 2018-09-09. Retrieved 2018-09-09. [6]
  19. Olmstead, Tim (1997-08-10). "CP/M Web site needs a host". Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm. Archived from the original
    on 2017-09-01. Retrieved 2018-09-09.
  20. Olmstead, Tim (1997-08-29). "ANNOUNCE: Caldera CP/M site is now up". Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm. Archived from the original on 2017-09-01. Retrieved 2018-09-09. [7]
  21. Caldera, Inc. 1997-08-28. Archived from the original on 2018-09-08. Retrieved 2015-09-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) [8][permanent dead link] [9][permanent dead link
    ]
  22. ^ Correia, Edward J. (2002-07-01). "Lineo Is Now Embedix - New company releases SDK, dumps RTXC". SD Times: Software Development News. Archived from the original on 2012-04-07. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
  23. ^ "SPECIAL REPORT: Motorola/Metrowerks acquires embedded Linux pioneer Lineo". Linux Devices. 2002-12-17. Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2013-01-28.
  24. ^ "Metrowerks to Expand Embedded Linux Tools and Solutions Offerings Through Embedix Asset Acquisition - Company to Add Embedix Tools and Technology to Integrated Development Platforms for PDAs, Smart Handheld Devices, Residential Gateways, Digital TVs". Austin, TX & Lindon, UT, USA: Metrowerks. 2002-12-17. Archived from the original on 2002-12-23. Retrieved 2002-12-23.
  25. ^ "Embedix Technology". Metrowerks. 2002-12-23. Archived from the original on 2002-12-23. Retrieved 2002-12-23.
  26. ^ "uClinux/uCsimm originators form new startup - News - Linux for Devices". Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2013-01-28.
  27. ^ "United System Engineers - Lineo@Linux". Archived from the original on 2010-01-30. Retrieved 2007-06-19.

Further reading

External links

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