Week of March 16

Caldera's IPO: More Money, Longer Wait: Caldera, Inc. has announced that its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) of stock will be postponed until Tuesday. The offering has been rescheduled a couple of times, but this time the postponement comes with a bit of a surcharge: shares of "CALD" will be offered for between $10 and $12, instead of the $7 to $9 originally proposed. The increased share price has led some to suggest that demand is mounting for the IPO, which investors have been waiting for ever since Linux rival, Red Hat went public last year. Many recent stories have cast some doubt about whether Caldera's IPO will approach the dizzying heights of other Linux public offerings, especially the record-breaking offering by VA Linux Systems.

The Other Canadian Linux Conspiracy: A pair of Canadian Linux companies, Mosaic Technologies and Alta Terra Ventures have joined together in an alliance that brings Mosaic's Linux training software to Alta Terra's MaxOS Linux operating system. Mosaic's training regime is suitable for beginners and more advanced users, covering such topics as networking and programming. Alta Terra's MaxOS offers the familiar boasts of ease-of-use and ease-of-install. But with training software bundled into the package, Alta Terra is hoping that users of its distribution will now have a complete educational on-ramp to getting the most out of their Linux OS. Additionally, Mosaic noted that they are developing a Linux simulator that will allow Windows users to install and set up Linux without leaving the Windows OS.

"We're not succumbing to mass hysteria! We're jumping on the bandwagon!" If you're a gold mining exploration company looking to "diversify" into the exciting world of high technology and the Internet, where might you look in order to hit the ground running? Well, Flame Petro-Minerals, a mining corporation with major (50%) interests in the Fish Creek Claims in the Fairbanks, Alaska mining district is looking at us. The company has announced that, having acquired LinuxWizardry Systems about two months ago, it is changing its name to "LinuxWizardry Systems" to "more closely represent the Company's true business activities as a pure-play Linux company." The company's announcement says the move is also geared toward "once and forever remov(ing) confusion for potential investors." Ahem ... Mike Carpenter, CIO of LinuxWizardry says, "My goal is to build a Linux-based low-cost router at a fraction of the cost of Cisco Systems." Adds John Robertson, CEO of Flame Petro-Minerals Corporation, "Most small businesses do not have and cannot afford to have a network specialist on staff to manage the network router. A network expert is very expensive and an unskilled amateur encounters great difficulty with the current generation of products."