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Mandrakesoft Acquires Conectiva
rednaxel writes "This morning, both companies issued press releases about the merge. French Mandrakesoft is acquiring all shares of brazilian Conectiva for a total amount of 1.79 million EUR (2.3 million USD) in stock." CNet has coverage of the merger as well. From the article: "This won't elevate us to the status of Red Hat or Novell/SuSE yet, of course, but this is a significant growth for us..."
actually, how how, do they make money by giving their product away for free? I can see red hat doing consulting/support, but mandrake caters to a different market
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
With Suse now an American brand (Novell) I think they might just be the number one European Linux company
Don't be so drawn in by the knee-jerk reactions to think that "acquisitions and mergers" are always a bad thing. You buy other companies to gain market share, brands, add to your own line of products and services, etc.
Such a move is often good for consumers, too. Imagine what would happen if all of the cell phone companies were small, local businesses. Not only would your service be crappy, but support and prices would probably suck too. By combining into a few major players, you get national service, a sturdy support system, and longevity - they're less likely to fold and leave you hanging.
You don't get to be the richest man in the world by letting your competition win.
Marcelo works for Cyclades @ Brazil.
As far as I am concerned what Mandrake could gain from Connectiva is a move to apt-rpm and Synaptic.
huh? Mandrake can move to apt-rpm and Synaptic any time they want. They don't have to merge with Conectiva to do that! It's Free Software after all.
The merger has got little to do with software and technical features, and everything to do with getting entry to South American markets.
Besides, both are heading towards the SMART package manager.
--
Simon
"actually, how how, do they make money by giving their product away for free?"
They sell their product. For between $30 and $150 per box. And people like me buy it, so they make money.
It might sound odd to buy something that you can download without charge (or buy CDs for $6), but really that's just a convenient aspect of the distribution mechanism. If I lose my boxed copy of Mandrake, I can make a copy, download, or buy a cheap copy. (Compare that to other operating-systems, where if you so much as change a hard-drive, you have to beg for permission to continue using the OS)
It might still seem odd to pay when you can freeload, but my opinion of that is that I'm paying for the future availability of Mandrake. (just like I pay for wikipedia even though it's free) -- we're buying the ability for anyone in the world to use the best OS without charge. And that's quite different to paying for just a license.