MandrakeSoft sees end to Chapter 11

Linux seller MandrakeSoft hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by the end of the year.

"Our immediate goal is to exit from this status before the end of the current year," the company said on its Web site last week. The company said its revenue exceeded expenses beginning in January, the same month it filed for bankruptcy protection.

MandrakeSoft, based in Paris but with most of its sales in North America, faces competition not only from Microsoft and established Linux sellers such as SuSE and Red Hat, but also from a new generation of Linux companies including Lindows, NeTraverse and Lycoris.

MandrakeSoft has released several new products to try to lure more customers. Its new 9.1 version for Linux enthusiasts, released in March, was followed by its Corporate Server 2.1 product, which like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server changes less frequently in an effort to ease interactions with corporations and software companies.

Mandrake Linux 9.1 is available on several desktop computers from Hewlett-Packard: the Compaq 220, 230, 325, D330 and D530. Mandrake Linux 9.2 is scheduled for release this fall, the company said.

The company also released a Linux product specifically for clusters of computers linked into a single calculation engine. And through research grants, the company is working two projects, software to donate a PC's otherwise unused computing ability to a pool of processing power and software to better use 802.11 Wi-Fi wireless networks while roaming from one network to another.