Paris (ip-192.com): Mandriva S.A., known for its Mandriva Linux distribution, is up for sale. The Paris, France based company is in acquisition talks with Linagora, a French open source software company, and Lightapp, a British company, several news outlets report.
Mandriva started in 1998 as MandrakeSoft. After a lengthy legal battle with the Hearst Corporation, the company agreed to change its name from MandrakeSoft to Mandriva. In 2005, it acquired the assets of Lycoris, known for its Desktop/LX Linux distribution, and Brazil based Conectiva. Mandriva took over Linbox in 2006 and formed a partnership with Turbolinux, a rebranded Red Hat distribution, two years later. The collaboration resulted in the creation of Mambo-Labs, an entity that allowed both companies to share resources and technologies.
During its corporate life, Mandriva has been through financial difficulties that culminated in a bankruptcy filing in March 2004. Several attempts to compete with Red Hat and SUSE Linux distributions in the enterprise market failed. The company made headlines when it was unable to convince Peugeot and Citroen that Mandriva was a viable alternative for 20,000 desktop PC's. Instead, the French automaker decided to switch from Windows to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. Mandriva was no option for the French parliament either when it decided to migrate to Ubuntu Linux.
Mandriva offers both desktop and server Linux distributions. Pulse 2 is an open source infrastructure management tool that allows IT departments to deploy applications and updates, run remote diagnostics, provide helpdesk functions, and maintain up-to-date inventories on hardware and software.
While Mandriva was unable to build brand name recognition like Red Hat or Ubuntu, the operating system has many loyal followers. The company employs about 75 people in France, Brazil, and the US. It is also traded on the French stock exchange.
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