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Commercial-grade Unix clone gives Linux a boost - Caldera Network Desktop - Product Announcement

Caldera Inc., the company which Novell founder Ray Noorda founded to make a $99 (U.S.) commercial-grade clone of Unix, is now shipping its first product.

While Caldera has already shipped about 10,000 $29 "previews' of its Caldera Network Desktop (CND), official release of the product occured this month.

Based on an enhanced version of the Linux Unix-compatible operating system, CND comes bundled with a full suite of Internet server and client software including Netscape Navigator and a multi-domain Web server.

It can act as a client system on NetWare networks, and as both client and server on Windows 95, Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT networks.

"We want to be known as the best and most cost-effective platform for Internet servers," said Ransom Love, Caldera's vice-president of marketing.

"We are capable of competing with any platform as an Internet server, including systems that are 20 times the cost of CND. Already, Linux-based systems account for nine per cent of the world's Web servers, second-most of any platform. Only Sun has more."

Linux, on which CND is based, is freely available for downloading on the Internet and can be purchased on CD-ROMs and collections for as little as $20.

Regardless, Love said commercial users wanted a supported and easy-to-install version of Linux which Caldera supplies, and they'll be ready to pay $99 for the CND.

"Our installation procedure has been totally redone," said Love.

"It's far better than anything else in Linux, including our own previews. Ease-of-installation and ease-of-use have been high priorities with us."

Love said that despite its freeware roots, Linux is ready to be used as a robust commercial operating system.

"Stability has never been an issue. We have companies doing real work and running high-volume Web sites with our preview releases. All the preview lacked was polish and I think we've done what was necessary for the production release."

To make Caldera more robust and easier to use and administer, Caldera has added some commercial enhancements not found in other Linux distributions, including:

* a commercial, high-speed X Windows server from X Inside Inc.;

* the Looking Glass window manager from Visix Software;

* the CRISP graphical text editor; and,

* the BACKUP.UNET system from MTI.

To complement the base system, Caldera has announced a CD-ROM of third-party commercial applications, claimed to be available within a month, which will be included with every copy of CND.

Called the "Caldera Solutions CD" it will allow users to unlock applications for demonstration or production use.

The highlight of the Solutions CD is the Caldera Internet Office Suite, which includes WordPerfect, ZMail from NCD Software, and the NExS graphical spreadsheet.

It will sell for an introductory price of $250.

Other applications to be included on the Solutions CD include CorelDraw and Delrina Forms.

To encourage other vendors of commercial software to port their packages to Linux and make them available on the Solutions CD, Love said Caldera was starting an Independent Vendor Partner program.

"There's no question that applications drive the need for operating systems, not vice versa," he said.

"We want to provide a catalyst that makes it easy for companies to port to this platform."

While Love was not sure what the current installed base of Linux was, he said that its various distributions are selling at a rate of between 50,000 and 100,000 per month.

"Such a large following is a great thing for us."

Adrian Buss, who operates the Internet server for the Toronto Linux Users' Group, said the increase in commercial implementations such as Caldera is good news for the Linux community.

"I'm really very excited about it," he said. "This is definitely going to help the viability of Linux, especially regarding the availability of commercial applications software."