Interview With Gaël Duval of Mandrake Linux

jukal writes "Open for Business's Timothy R. Butler talked with Mandrake co-founder Gaël Duval about the company's past, present, and future. Worth a read, clip: "GD: For one year, we had a so-called "World Class Management" team that left us in a very bad financial situation, and engaged the company in ventures (such as e-learning) that we should never have been involved with. But that's all part of our history now, so I'd prefer to not dwell too much on that. ""

Comments

Mandrake Foundation

[InodoroPereyra]

I read this article earlier and submitted the story myself. What really caught my attention was this paragraph:

For the future, we are thinking about a "Mandrake Foundation" which would be a non-profit organization that focuses on developing the Mandrake Linux distribution exclusively. It would be financed partly by Club memberships and/or donations and/or by a "Street performer"-like system, and partly by companies that make money with Mandrake products, including MandrakeSoft. We think this approach would be much clearer for everyone to understand, and would also provide a more secure future for the Mandrake Linux distribution. It would also help MandrakeSoft become a more successful and profitable company by cutting most of its development costs.

Uou. That is to me some pretty cool idea. I am not sure this is the way to go, but it sounds promising. The other viable model for Mandrake would be to sell solutions (customized desktop environments plus support) to big companies, which is what redhat seems to be trying to do with their upcoming "corporate desktop" thing. Mandrake should go ahead in the same direction. They have a much more polished desktop product.

They never had one

[mirnav]

MandrakeSoft contacted us for financing some months ago, proposing a chunk of the company in exchange for a chunk of cash so that we would become significant shareholders.

We were interested until the moment we realized that, although possessing a good distro with a significant user base, MandrakeSoft would never be a successful company because it never had a business plan. (Pause here for a chuckle at the thought of "world class management team")

I have all the respect in the world for people who code/invent/create for the pleasure of that moment of coding/invention/creation and do not say that all such moments need be related to an eventual profitmaking plan. However, I do ask that from a company who asks us for millions with the promise of return in the (not so far) future.

This is where you will ask about the ingenious subscription/donation plan of MandrakeSoft. In my humble opinion as a financial investor, this revenue model will probably keep the company afloat, but will never make it a very profitable company, because the subscribers/donators are only agreeing to this because they wish to see MandrakeSoft survive, not to see it thrive! Once the company starts making a little profit, these revenues will stop. In short, with its current "business model" based on subscriptions/donations MandrakeSoft can and will probably be a non-profit organization that can cover its costs... maybe with tiny little profits if its supporters are feeling particularly generous that quarter.

RedHat entering the business desktop market is not good news for MandrakeSoft either - that is one market they could have earned real money from and now that chance is going... going... gone. How can they possibly compete? I have a company that already runs RedHat, who also provides me the service I need. Who am I going to choose for the desktops - RedHat or MandrakeSoft?

I hope MandrakeSoft survives. They do cool software. However, their story would make a brilliant Harvard Business Review and should be taught in schools to show the perils of going ahead with an idea without a thought of how you intend to eventually make money with it.