08.27.07

Is that light at the end of the tunnel?

Posted in English, Mandriva at 12:09 pm by François Bancilhon

« The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco ». It seams that we should be able to reuse Mark Twain’s joke with Paris instead of SFO. I do not remember seeing such bad weather in the summer: it’s been cold, rainy and miserable. And we know many other parts of globe are suffering from horrible weather conditions: heat wave in the south, floods in the North, not to mention hurricanes.

At the same time, the Mandriva weather has been a little rough over the past quarters, which might have added to the general mood.

So it will soon be time to cheer you up with some good news. We have been kind of quiet recently, which does not mean we have not been active. We have been working hard on our products and services offering and on our sales. On the product side, we listened to all our friends and contributors and to the community. On the sales side, our sales team was on the offensive.

We are not ready to show all the results yet, but most projects are in the works and some sales were closed. So let me give you a preview of some of the things we are planning to announce in the coming months:

  1. a brand new web site,
  2. a major restructuring of our consumer product line and of our club offering,
  3. a nice small hardware deal in an emerging market country with our friends from Santa Clara and against our friends from Redmond,
  4. a sizable software and services deal in another emerging country,
  5. a strategic deal with a major player than could have a strong impact on our desktop sales worldwide.

These will not change the situation immediately from stormy weather to bright sunshine, but it will improve it and will be an indication that we are on the right path.

So, stay tuned and we’ll bring you some of those good news fairly soon.

12 Comments

  1. FACORAT Fabrice said,

    August 27, 2007 at 2:15 pm

    Glad to hear that.
    Congrats !

    BTW, whereas Mandriva is the merger between Mandrake and one the of first linux player in Brazil ( Connectiva ), I don’t hear much about progress or deals or events in Brazil. What’s the situation over there ?

  2. AshLeDombos said,

    August 27, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    French translation / traduction française :
    “L’hivers le plus froid que j’aie connu a été un été à San Francisco”. Il semble que nous pourrions réutiliser la plaisanterie de Mark Twain avec Paris au lieu de SF. Je ne me rappelle pas avoir vu un si mauvais temps en été ; il a fait froid, il a plu, il faisait moche. Et nous savons maintenant que beaucoup d’autres parties du globe souffrent d’horribles conditions climatiques;: vague de chaleur dans le sud, inondations au nord, sans parler des ouragans.
    Parallèlement, le climat de mandriva a été un peu dire ces derniers temps, ce qui a aussi joué le moral général.

    Donc il sera bientôt temps de se regonfler le moral avec quelques bonnes nouvelles. Nous avons été plustôt silcencieux ces derniers temps, ce qui ne signifie pas que nous n’avons pas été actifs. Nous avons travaillé dur sur nos produits et services et sur nos ventes. Côté production, nous avons écouté tous nos amis et contributeurs, et la communauté. Côté ventes, nos équipes étaient sur l’offensives.

    Nous ne sommes encore pas prêts à vous montrer tous les résultats, mais la plupart des projets sont sur le feu et certaines ventes ont été conclues. Ainsi, je me permet de vous donner un aperçu d’une partie de nos annonces prochaines pour les prochains mois :

    1. un tout nouveau site web,
    2. une restructuration majeure de notre gamme de produits et des offres du club,
    3. un sympathique marché sur du petit matériel dans un pays au marché émergeant avec nos amis de Santa Clara, contre nos amis de Redmond,
    4. un marché assez conséquent sur des produits et services dans un autre pays émergeant,
    5. un contrat stratégique avec un acteur majeur qui pourrait avoir de fortes répercussions sur nos ventes mondiales dans le marché des ordinateurs de bureau.

    Cela ne transformera pas immédiatement notre ciel orageux en ciel ensoleillé, mais ça va y contribuer et ça sera un indicateur du fait que nous sommes sur la bonne voie.

    Donc restez à l’écoute et nous vous apporterons certaines de ces bonnes nouvelles d’ici peu.

  3. Frédéric CUIF (Fredxx) said,

    August 27, 2007 at 3:28 pm

    Mandriva is back !
    Thanks François, for those announcements, and congratulations too.

  4. Alexis Y. (Ayo) said,

    August 27, 2007 at 4:47 pm

    I spent a very long time in this company and also, as I hold some shares (a really small amount ^_^ of course) I still keep an eye on the Mandriva ship, since I left the boat .
    I truly hope that the title of this post will shortly turns from a question to an assertion, but beyond all the good and the bad things that happens to Mandriva I really believe that it’s longevity means a lot. So keep the efforts up, light at the end of the tunnel is just a question of time ..

    Cheers.

  5. drakedalfa said,

    August 27, 2007 at 7:06 pm

    C00l, good news.

  6. Ricardo said,

    August 28, 2007 at 3:50 pm

    I’m a Mandriva Certified Professional In Brazil and i have to work with RHEL or SUSE do pay my bills … even i do not hear from Mandriva anymore …

  7. Gonzalo Nemmi said,

    August 29, 2007 at 12:59 am

    I thought you might be working out an agreement with Dell in Brazil … I mean .. given that Mandriva not only has offices in Brazil and that Dell begun manufacturing hardware in Brazil (http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/pressoffice/en/2001/2001_02_19_pa_000?c=us&l=en&s=corp)
    it came to me as a no brainer that dell-mandriva for the latin american market was more than likely …

    A hardware manufacturer and a Linux solution provider, working in the same conuntry, serving the same market, the same public .. I sure hope you can struc a deal in there.

  8. PPTP-LINUX said,

    August 29, 2007 at 9:15 am

    Mandriva linux is the best desktop out there true. it’s good to here such great news about © 2007 Mandriva Corporation. All rights reserved

  9. Olivier said,

    August 29, 2007 at 6:01 pm

    If you can read french :
    http://ofaurax.free.fr/blog/index.php5/?billet=2007-08-29-03h03-0200.xml

  10. SODIX said,

    August 30, 2007 at 4:46 am

    I glad to hear this news.

  11. protected * void » Volta à Mandriva Conectiva said,

    September 4, 2007 at 5:37 pm

    […] François deu a idéia, mas é o máximo que posso […]

  12. Adam Williamson said,

    September 5, 2007 at 7:57 pm

    Ricardo: if you’re out there, please drop me a line and we’ll see if we can get you in touch with some of our people in Brazil. awilliamson A T mandriva D O T com.

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