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A recent story entitled, “Dearly Departed: Companies and Products That Didnt Deserve to Die” didnt cover Linux or open-source companies. That got me to thinking. So here, without further adieu, is my list of five Linux companies that died before their time.
5) Cobalt Networks Way back in 2000, Sun purchased Cobalt Networks, a hotter than hot low-end server appliance company in a stock-for-stock deal worth about $2 billion. The Cobalt products used MIPS processors, which put them in direct competition with Suns own UltraSPARC CPUs.
These were very nice Linux-powered mini-servers that were perfect for small and midsize businesses. They worked well and they were cheap to boot. Ed Zander (then Suns president) said of Suns Cobalt server line at the time: “We think the demand for these high-volume, turnkey devices will explode in the next couple of years. Cobalt is our bet for the future.”