14 DAY TRIAL // Probably one of the most important company acquisitions in the Linux world happened: Linspire was bought by Xandros. The event took place yesterday, and the cost of the acquisition was kept secret from the media.
Xandros decided to keep the most important aspects of Linspire, so employees from engineering, support and sales will still have their jobs. Linspire's CEO, Larry Kettle, will join Xandros executive team as Vice-President of Business Development.
Kevin Carmony, former Linspire CEO, notes on his blog that he received a "memorandum" from Linspire, as an actual Linspire shareholder. This notice was sent to all the shareholders, but there was no such meeting to discuss the acquisition issue.
Carmony sees this move as a "completely insignificant event for Linspire shareholders and the end for Linspire customers." He continues on this matter: I predict this was done to: 1) help Robertson drain the company of its cash and resources. When I left Linspire, we had a very profitable year and the company had millions in the bank. I predict Robertson has moved this money to himself, family, and his other companies, leaving Linspire's minority shareholders with nothing. 2) help Robertson save face by issuing a "Linspire Acquired by Xandros!" press release, instead of living with the public humiliation that Linspire failed under his leadership. (Although, being out lasted by Xandros isn't much less embarrassing.) Such a press release will of course be meaningless unless the acquisition was substantial. As a shareholder, I will eventually find out. 3) Give Xandros a press release and perhaps some way for them to spin this to investors to raise money."
It seems that Xandros and Linspire are not at the first discussion on a CEO level for merging their companies (this has been going on for a few years), as they are similar in many aspects, including their product lines and Debian 'ancestry'. If you're wondering what will happen to Freespire after the merger, don't worry! It will still be available as Xandros won't touch it.