Computergram  Thu Nov 18, 1999

 Caldera Takes Linux for E-Business Into the Channel

By Rachel Chalmers 

In an industry swarming with stuffed penguins and Red Hats, 
Caldera Systems Inc seems like a quiet achiever. Rather than 
making huge acquisitions, as Red Hat Inc has done, or planning 
a frontal assault on the consumer desktop and applications 
space, as Corel Corp has committed itself to doing, Caldera has 
been quietly mining the ISV and VAR space. "The sweet spot for 
Linux is in the commercial sector," CEO Ransom Love told 
ComputerWire. "Nobody buys operating systems. They buy a 
solution." He identifies two growing trends in commercial 
computing: the application service provider model, in which 
companies host services for their clients; and the appliance 
model, in which VARs provide boxed solutions to their clients' 
premises. Love maintains that both markets are ripe for Linux - 
he cites research to the effect that 82% of all VARs want to 
deploy Linux in the next twelve months - and he believes that 
Caldera is the best-placed provider to pluck this low-hanging 
fruit. 

Available now are Caldera's eServer, which can be customized to 
deploy and manage applications remotely, and eBuilder, a Java- 
based component framework for building those applications. 
Still to come: eDesktop, a client for appliances. The company 
is also a pioneer in training and certification, helping 
systems integrators re-educate their CNEs or MCSEs with 
equivalent qualifications in Linux. Perhaps most importantly, 
Caldera is an ardent supporter of the Linux Standard Base 
(LSB), a project to enhance interoperability between different 
Linux distributions. "We'd like to see the LSB expand. We'd 
like to see common libraries and naming conventions," Love 
said. "The Linux distribution business is dead. There is no 
business in distribution any more. Where you want to 
differentiate is in productization." He notes that while Red 
Hat is desperately trying to brand itself as a major player, 
corporations are already doing business with suppliers they 
know and trust. Caldera wants to sell to those suppliers. 

"The hottest spot is in specialized servers," Love said. 
Caldera's self-hosting environment makes it relatively easy to 
port OpenLinux to alternative microprocessor platforms. "In 
this new world of specialized devices, there's room for 
platforms that give a little extra grunt," Love said. "That can 
be done by the integrator. And what other operating system does 
that? Linux opens the door for true freedom. It gives control 
back to the people who are providing the solutions." One 
extreme example is that of Helius, which is providing wireless 
and satellite internet access with OpenLinux running on its 
routers. "You can plug it in in two hours and you get T1 
connectivity for 250 clients," boasts Love. "They say they 
cover 98% of the known world - the other 2%, no one lives there 
anyway!" Caldera's reputation as a quiet achiever may be called 
into doubt. Where Corel only wants to beat Windows 98, Caldera 
wants to beat NT. Love doesn't deny the accusation, but he does 
say this: "We don't really compete. We facilitate and become a 
partner. In that sense, we're the antithesis to NT."