Linuxcare Reincarnated as Levanta

ches_grin writes "BusinessWeek is running a nice profile on Levanta, the former dot-com poster child once known as Linuxcare. From the article: 'It's not that Matt Mosman has an easy job. As Linux continues its march deeper into Corporate America's racks and racks of servers, his small Silicon Valley company, Levanta, is one of many trying to help companies install and manage all those servers--a big, complex problem that's not being solved very well right now. Still, Mosman has one thing going for him: He can't do much worse than his predecessors.'"

Comments

First step with the company..

[GonzoTech]

... hiring Martin Taylor for Levanta LIVE!

but what we all really want to know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

...does Ceren Ercen still work there?!

Re:but what we all really want to know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard they fired her and replaced her with someone who was actually good looking.

Jesus.

[Frosty Piss]

This happens quite often, and I'm always scratching my head, why would they take a perfictly reasonable and understandable company name and "synergize" it in to something stupid. Case in point, "Linuxcare" changed to "Levanta". I would avoid them based on that stupidity alone.

Re:Jesus.

[morgan_greywolf]

Well, there's probably a few reasons in this case.

1. They don't want to get sued by Linus over the use of the 'Linux trademark.
   
2. They don't want to get pigeonholed into doing just 'Linux' support. They're probably already doing some level of application support, and they might want to expand into *BSD, OpenSolaris, etc. later.
   
3. To a suit, 'Levanta' probably just sounds cooler than 'LinuxCare.' LinuxCare sounds utilitarian, while 'Levanta' sounds like it could be the next acid blocker medication, right along side Nexium, Zantac, Pecid and Tazac.
   

Re:Jesus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Levanta (Spanish) = Stand up! (English)

  I'm a spanish spoker (as you can see i don't write englsih well) and i'm wondering why, when english people choose a name for his creations, never check if the name as another significate in other languajes, for example Levanta or, the worst one, "inkulator" than sound in latin as "inculator", that means "ass fucker"

  BTW:

    "no se me levanta", spanish phrase that means .... "i have no erections" xDDDDD

Re:Jesus.

[Syberghost]

Because "Linuxcare" is mentally associated with suckage and failure, and the "Hi! I know we went out of business, but we're back, PLEASE hire us!" sales pitch wasn't working out.

I'm not saying it's right to associate them with that, it's not entirely their fault they fell apart, but that's a perception that many hold regarding them. The name needed to change.

Re:Jesus.

[morgan_greywolf]

Anecdotal evidence to support this assertion is my own business. It languished on the edge of bankruptcy while trying to "sell" free software and services. I was never able to get anyone interested in free software. However, as soon as I removed the free software references from my website and started pitching Microsoft centric solutions two things happened.

As if it mattered whether or not it was a Microsoft-centric approach.

Most customers don't actually care as much what the solution consists of -- Microsoft, Open Source, "Free" Software, whatever -- what they want are the following:

1. It solves the problem. It does what the customer needs it to do, meeting all of the customer's functionality requirements.
   
2. Performance is adequate for the task at hand. Performance isn't top of the list for most customers, but they also don't want to spend too much time waiting on the system, either.
   
3. The system has good usability and minimizes the cost of training.
   
4. Compatbility with the customer's existing systems and infrastructure. If it doesn't work with what they've already got, they won't touch it.
   
5. The solution comes with good support for every aspect of the system. If they can't get it fixed by someone other than you, the solution is useless to them.
   
6. The cost to install and maintain the system is within their budget. If they can't afford it, they just won't do it.
   
7. The consultant designing or implementing the system demonstrates that he or she is knowledgeable and has good business communication skills. The consultant needs to understand the customer's project, budget, and business requirements on a deep level.
   
   
   If you have these things covered, it won't matter to the vast majority of customers what vendor(s) you use. Linux, Windows, Mac, whatever -- as long as it does what the customer needs and fits the above criteria, customers will flock to your solutions and pay you well.
   

Lowest price for Levanta!

[gEvil (beta)]

Don't let Levanta's nondescript, prescription drug-sounding name fool you

Glad I'm not the only one who immediately thought I'd be getting spams saying: L3van7a at l0w lovv pr1ce5

My doctor said Levanta

[drewzhrodague]

I understand, from one of the developers of Linuxcare, that the company was managed poorly, chose silly routes for their services, and were probably a little ahead of their time. Let's hope they make this work.

It's a good name

[Bullfish]

As the name is close enough to Levitra, with some clever marketing people will believe the company can keep your computer up.

Re:It's a good name

[gEvil (beta)]

Please contact your sysadmin if your computer stays up for longer than 48 hours.

Interesting idea

[ThinkingInBinary]

I've seen Levanta's ads in Linux Journal before. Besides the silly name, it sounds like a pretty interesting premise--remote administration, deployment, and management of servers. I don't know how well it actually works, or how painful the integration with the managed servers is, but it certainly sounds cool.

How it works

[ThinkingInBinary]

For those who, like me, are wondering about how the Levanta Intrepid (the actual box) can remotely manage servers with such "precision"... I looked it up on their website.

Basically, all of the servers that are managed by the Intrepid are set up to network boot, and use network disks. So the Intrepid controls the kernel they boot with and their filesystems. This gives it the ability to install or uninstall software behind-the-scenes, as well as make byte-level backups of servers and transition them to other machines (simply by switching around which server boots to which disk).

To me, at least, this seems quite clever.

Someone please refresh our memories

[Anonymous Coward]

LinuxCare had a very colorful history, with VCs installing people with known fraud backgrounds as CXO level execs only to later have him sexaully assault guys working there (where further digging revealed that they had been accused of this in the past) and contributing greatly to the company's death due to calling in of favors he owed other companies. I hear they made some of their employees use Windows software (requiring a second computer) as one of those deals

If LinuxCare left any mark on the world, tt's a poster child of bad-behavior of VCs and the importance of founders keeping in control when negotiating with them.

Someone with a clearer memory than me, and hopefully references, please fill in the details.

I used to work for LinuxCare...

[ezrec]

I used to work for LinuxCare, from January 2000 to Sept 2003. I have to say, to was a wild ride. At the 'LinuxCare' phase, I mostly did contract work to write Linux device drivers for 3rd parties. (Including some absolutely evil stuff like a C++ stub for kernel modules, and a 'look like NT' wrapper for a MPEG encoder kernel module.) In early 2000, we moved into our 'new' offices (we took up the entire basement of the huge converted warehouse building we were in), and had 'The Worlds Ugliest Mural' done by a local graffiti artist. The entire floor was carpeded with the LinuxCare 'X' logo. Yes, custom logo carpet. Around 2001, the support business collapsed. The Founders left, except for Art, but we picked up a new CEO, some really smart IBM guys, and started working on what was to be the Levanta project. Originally targeted for IBM z/390 mainframes, it used the z/VM operating system to provide multiple 'on-demand' Linux-on-390 'partitions'. (z/VM is the mainframe equivalent to VMWare, but 20 years old !) Akmal Khan came on board after Levanta was in full swing, and immediately took a dislike to the the distributed nature of our development group. There was Pittsburgh, doing the primary backend database; Ottawa was doing the web GUI and z/VM interface; Las Vegas handled the web infrastructure; project management in Atlanta; and San Francisco was sales and marketing. Except for SF and Ottawa, most sites telecommuted, so no 'office overhead' for those areas. It became apparent pretty quickly that Akmal was the micromanaging type. By spring 2003, A.K. had collected his own group of technical people (very good ones, by the way) in SF, diverted all development of 'Levanta-on-Intel' to SF, and started making it pretty clear to the managers that all sites except SF would be going away. That fall of 2003, the axe arrived for Ottawa, and I walked away from Levanta and the political mess that had developed. I'm glad to have worked for LinuxCare, and had a ton-of-fun working on Levanta-on-z/390.

Re:I used to work for LinuxCare...

[ezrec]

(Dang, I'm so used to Wiki...)

I used to work for LinuxCare, from January 2000 to Sept 2003. I have to say, to was a wild ride.

At the 'LinuxCare' phase, I mostly did contract work to write Linux device drivers for 3rd parties. (Including some absolutely evil stuff like a C++ stub for kernel modules, and a 'look like NT' wrapper for a MPEG encoder kernel module.)

In early 2000, we moved into our 'new' offices (we took up the entire basement of the huge converted warehouse building we were in), and had 'The Worlds Ugliest Mural' done by a local graffiti artist. The entire floor was carpeded with the LinuxCare 'X' logo. Yes, custom logo carpet.

Around 2001, the support business collapsed. The Founders left, except for Art, but we picked up a new CEO, some really smart IBM guys, and started working on what was to be the Levanta project. Originally targeted for IBM z/390 mainframes, it used the z/VM operating system to provide multiple 'on-demand' Linux-on-390 'partitions'. (z/VM is the mainframe equivalent to VMWare, but 20 years old !)

Akmal Khan came on board after Levanta was in full swing, and immediately took a dislike to the the distributed nature of our development group. There was Pittsburgh, doing the primary backend database; Ottawa was doing the web GUI and z/VM interface; Las Vegas handled the web infrastructure; project management in Atlanta; and San Francisco was sales and marketing. Except for SF and Ottawa, most sites telecommuted, so no 'office overhead' for those areas.

It became apparent pretty quickly that Akmal was the micromanaging type. By spring 2003, A.K. had collected his own group of technical people (very good ones, by the way) in SF, diverted all development of 'Levanta-on-Intel' to SF, and started making it pretty clear to the managers that all sites except SF would be going away.

That fall of 2003, the axe arrived for Ottawa, and I walked away from Levanta and the political mess that had developed.

I'm glad to have worked for LinuxCare, and had a ton-of-fun working on Levanta-on-z/390.

If you experience...

[d_p]

...an erection lasting longer than four hours, stop taking Levanta.