Lineo Inc. today announced the results of recent changes, including the removal of hardware businesses and changes to the executive team, along with another round of investment. The plan for a major corporate restructuring and refocusing had been announced two months ago, and a change in CEOs was href=”/NS8309879705.html” target=”_blank”>announced last month.

The spin-offs include the removal of several Lineo hardware products, including: Availix (high-availability hardware systems / Paris); uCdimm (microcontroller hardware / Toronto); and SnapGear (residential gateway hardware / Brisbane).

As a result of the spin-offs and other staffing reductions, company-wide headcount is now 138, according to Lineo CEO Matthew Harris. “We feel like we're the right size now,” said Harris. Harris expects Lineo to reach break even in approximately six months.

Additionally, Harris said Lineo has just received an investment of nearly $3 million from internal investors. “The investment represents a 'real' cash infusion, not just a paper transaction,” Harris added.

Lineo's current management team is as follows: Matthew Harris is Lineo CEO. Former CEO Bryan Sparks continues as a Lineo board member and advisor to the company. The rest of the executive team consists of Alford Frost as SVP marketing; Tim Bird as CTO; Barbara Clickner as SVP engineering; Craig Shank as SVP strategic operations; Rich Larsen as SVP sales and services; Mark Novakovich as VP finance; Raj Sidana as VP services and Michael Nilson as VP human resources and administration.

“Collectively, these changes have increased Lineo's focus on its core business of providing embedded operating systems, tools, host development environments and professional services that create solutions for target vertical markets, including the handheld, residential gateway and digital television products,” explained Lineo CEO Matthew Harris. “Lineo has undertaken a series of well-executed changes over the past several months as part of an ongoing program to focus on core software offerings to the embedded market,” he added. “The changes were also implemented in response to current economic conditions. In September, we cut headcount and we advanced plans to spin-off those portions of our business with a significant hardware element. This has left Lineo in a position to do what it does best: provide market-leading tools, OS and vertical solutions to silicon partners and OEM customers. Lineo is now solely focused on meeting the needs of these core partners and customers. Our sharpened focus has resulted in accelerated growth in design wins.”

How does Harris feel about the overall future of the Embedded Linux Market? “I think the future is as bright as the Evans Study predicts,” he said. Market analyst Evans Corporation published a research study in July 2001 based on data collected from more than 500 embedded systems developers, which projects that Embedded Linux is currently the third most popular embedded operating system — behind Wind River's VxWorks and Microsoft's MS-DOS — and may leap-frog into the #1 position as soon as next year.

 
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