LEVANTA and LINUX MANAGEMENT
Yes, its official, sad to say I am no longer with Levanta. I had rejoined Levanta after three years away from the business with high hopes that Id play a key part in the turnaround story. I used to joke with friends about the old Linuxcare days; Linuxcare was like a bad teen that winds up in Jail, but as a parent (founder), you still would like to see it get its GED
While I have no confidence in the board (what else is new) or the new CEO, I hold out hopes the company will some day succeed. There are still some great people there who deserve a win. While its sad to see your startup child wind up in jail, no matter how bad it has been you never want to see it sentenced to the chair. That said, what does it take to make a Linux management company successful in the odd world of Open Source software? Lets take a look at a competitor with nearly identical product offerings facing a similar set of market circumstances.
http://www.qlusters.com/
I only say identical in the same sense that one might compare VHS and Beta, remember those? Essentially the Levanta solution and the Qlusters offering do much the same things for basically the same set of customers.
Qlusters is doing a number of things right, in many respects, they have caught the Cluetrain and are effectively using the bazaar whereas Levanta, embarrassingly enough, has embraced the cathedral. Common sense in the modern internet world is all about exposure, attention, and number of downloads; its a gigantic numbers game where the winners are usually the companies or organizations with the fastest path to the largest market with low barriers to acquisition. This means they put it all out there and figure out who the real customers are on the fly. This is a great way to figure out what interests potential customers about your product or service.
When faced with a decision two years ago between making the Levanta software downloadable and open or wrapping it in a tin box (as an appliance) and going down a completely proprietary path they took the low road. While there are a number of strategies the company could employ to produce a reliable product, with a solid support community, and getting it into the hands of many customers; they made a decision the board likely felt comfortable with. While I think both Levanta and Qlusters have created an interesting Frankenstein of distribution enhancement technologies, at least Qlusters isnt pissing off the villagers.
Frankly, I just dont believe a market now exists for the type of product that either company offers. There are too many other lower cost (or free) individual solutions to the provisioning, change management, and recovery problems and suspect that both companies will eventually close up shop. However, in some cases a quick trip to the chair is preferable to eternity spent on death row. If you doubt that analysis for even a minute, check out what’s happened to Netscape recently…
