A year or go, the term "Linux business" was something of an oxymoron. Business? With "free software?" Well, that was before the Red Hat IPO, which was when the world changed. By the time 1999 was out, "Linux business" included VA Linux, Andover.net, Cobalt and other relatively new publicly traded companies whose combined market value totaled in the dozens of millions of dollars.
Suddenly the question was, "Who are these guys going to buy with all this new market cap?" Red Hat started with Cygnus. VA started with Andover (which had its own spectacular IPO at about the same time as VA's). All eyes turned toward a pair of well-established PC software companies that had recently repositioned themselves as Linux businesses: Corel and Inprise/Borland.
Both looked like they would help fill out the product portfolios of either Red Hat or a VA Linux. Neither Corel nor Inprise would be easy to buy: both were profitable, with revenues in the hundreds of millions, despite relatively depressed market stock values. But it looked do-able.
Then, on February 7, the two companies did something nobody expected: they merged with each other. The new company looked to boast total sales of over $400 million, profits of a quarter that sum, and a market cap at merger of $2.44 billion. It would be called Corel, finally retiring Inprise/Borland 's identity crisis (though key Inprise products would still bear the Borland brand).
Olive branches were immediately extended to the rest of the Linux community. In an interview with Linux Journal, Dale Fuller (the Inprise interim president and CEO who will become chairman of Corel's board of directors) declared his intention to partner with all the other Linux players, as well as its growing legion of developers. "We want to work with all the distributions and with all the development communities," he said. "They'll all need applications and development tools. That's our business. We're here to help."
The true test will come when Corel finishes coming out with its complete office application suite, and Borland's Kylix project completes the Delphi and C++ Builder development products for Linux. With all those products ready, Linux will likely become truly competitive (as well as compatible) with Microsoft on the desktop. Will customers buy it? Stay tuned.
— Doc Searls