[BALUG-Talk] Levanta, formerly known as Linuxcare, has shut down

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Jesse Zbikowski (embeddedlinuxguy at gmail.com):

> I am curious about the original Linuxcare IPO debacle.

Unfortunately, there is a pretty much total veil of silence about the
root-causes of the mysterious year-2000 IPO cancellation, and I've heard
tell of some lawsuits that have more than adequately motivated the
widespread reticence.  Basically, the people who know simply aren't
talking.

The Wikipedia article covering both Linuxcare and Levanta[1] has only
this, on the subject:  "Linuxcare was preparing for an initial public
offering in early 2000, until it fired its CEO and CIO."  (That
assertion was entered into the page by former Linuxcare employee Brent
Neely, login bneely, in a 2004-07-05 edit.  A later Wikipedian supplied
the two officers' names.)

(I'm personally not commenting.)


> Was there just not a big enough market for 24/7 end-user phone support 
> in 2001?  

Let me just give my personal view that there _was_ an excellent market
opportunity in that area, during the 1999-2001 period in question.

Interesting commentary from Mike Perry:
http://lnxpowered.org/2008/03/31/ends-and-beginnings/

Also noted without comment:
http://www.advogato.org/proj/DougNassaurWatch/

[1] The two firms were said to be pretty much entirely different, and 
I know that, for one thing, the recapitalisation that relauched the firm
as Levanta entailed a million-to-one reverse stock split on all
outstanding common-stock shares of Linuxcare, Inc.