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Inside Ximian
An anonymous reader writes "Linux and Main is running a story of a visit to Ximian headquarters and a talk with Nat Friedman, Miguel de Icaza, and Jon Perr about GNOME2, Ximian 2, and getting Linux onto the corporate desktop. Interesting and funny, with lots of details about the place and the guys."
If you kiss Microsoft's ass, you'll contract Mono.
Well the project sounds ambitious and all... but I tend to gauge the success of a company such as this by how cool their logo is. I think these guys are going to have a great future. Anybody else as shallow as me?
Ximian GNOME has a number of advantages over the standard desktop GNOME that comes with your distro.
For the desktop itself, we put a lot of effort into making sure it's more attractive, easier to use, and better updated. We focus on the desktop, we're desktop experts, and it shows.
* If you're using it in a large company, it's cheaper because it's the same on more than one platform: this consistency makes both UNIX and Linux systems less expensive to support. (This portion, by the way, is free).
* People buy Ximian Connector because they want to be able to connect to Exchange 2000 systems without having to use Outlook Web Access and without having to use a Windows box. Especially in large corporations where engineering is a Linux/UNIX installed base, it's important to be able to schedule with the management and use the shared address books and so forth; if you can't, you might as well not exist.
* People use the Red Carpet CorporateConnect service in order to have a stable, cross-platform way to ship their own software, plus operating system and desktop software from multiple vendors. They need to manage software installation sets and updates across multiple platforms, without vendor lock-in.
* Companies like HP and Sun pay us to perform custom development work, including accessibility improvements and platform ports.
* Individuals like you sign up for Red Carpet Express to get faster downloads.
* Linux ISVs can ship software through Red Carpet or Red Carpet Express. This isn't a really big business now, but it has potential.
Is that a reasonable enough answer?
For more information about Ximian desktop software and other products and services, feel free to visit http://ximian.com, write to us, or fill out the information request form at ximian.com/about_us/contact/information.html.
Yours,
Aaron Weber
Ximian, Inc.
Thank you for not using the words "productize", "big picture", "methodology", "consumers", "leverage", "methodology", or "proactive" in your description of what your company does. I could actually understand every word of what you wrote.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.