Metrowerks acquires Lineo

Remember Lineo? This company initially was spun out of Caldera as Caldera Thin Systems, but switched over to Lineo shortly thereafter. Lineo received vast amounts of venture capital, went on an acquisition spree (FirePlug, INUP, Moreton Bay, USE, RT-Control, Zentropix, ...), and filed for a $60 million IPO - in May, 2000. Needless to say, things didn't work out that way.

Denied its IPO cash windfall, Lineo went into decline. The hardware businesses it had picked up were unacquired. Then, last April, the company was "recapitalized" - from the details that have been made available it seems that the company was foreclosed upon and reincarnated (as "Embedix, Inc.") in the hands of the Canopy Group - the company's venture capital firm. Now Lineo/Embedix has been sold to Metrowerks, which hopes to make a compelling product out of the combination of Embedix and CodeWarrior. Of the 200+ people employed by Lineo when it filed for its IPO, about 30 remain to move to Metrowerks.

Lineo is a relic of the Linux Bubble Days; perhaps the only surprising thing is that it lasted this long. The company certainly had worthwhile products in its Embedix system, development tools, and embedded web browser. But they got caught up in the hype of those days and went off buying big trade show booths, acquiring companies of marginal use, and generally trying to tread the high-flying IPO-bound path. When the IPO failed to happen, there really just wasn't a whole lot left.

Lineo pursued a path that appeared to be rational and lucrative at the time; it's hard to put (too much) blame on the company's management. It has taken years, however, to divest the pieces of a company built around the dotcom business model. What's left, finally, is the core of a real Linux business, which, as part of a bigger structure, will be doing its part for Linux World Domination in a more realistic way. The end of the dotcom bubble has brought hard times to many Linux companies and developers, but it has also brought a new focus on creating products and services that customers actually want to buy. That change will, in the long run, do far more good for Linux and free software than the Bubble Days ever did.

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