Ximian, Inc. (previously called Helix Code and originally named International Gnome Support) was an American company that developed, sold and supported

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

for

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

based on the

GNOME A gnome is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, first introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and later adopted by more recent authors including those of modern fantasy literature. Its characte ...

platform. It was founded by

Miguel de Icaza Miguel de Icaza (born November 23, 1972) is a Mexican programmer, best known for starting the GNOME, Mono, and Xamarin projects. Biography Early years De Icaza was born in Mexico City and studied Mathematics at the National Autonomous Universit ...

and

Nat Friedman Nathaniel Dourif Friedman is an American technology executive and investor. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of GitHub, and former Chairman of the GNOME Foundation. Friedman is currently a board member at the Arc Institute, and an advisor ...

in 1999 and was bought by

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

in 2003. Novell continued to develop Ximian's original products, while adding support for its own

GroupWise GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, whi ...

and

ZENworks ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Micro Focus International for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire product life cycle management, life cycle of server (computing), servers, of desktop compute ...

software.

History

Miguel de Icaza had a job interview at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

in 1997 shortly before he started the GNOME project. At Microsoft he met Nat Friedman, who worked there as an intern. Afterwards they became good friends. In April 1999 Friedman came up with the idea to create a company to work on GNOME. The company was founded on 19 October 1999 as International GNOME Support, but its name was changed to Helix Code later. Because that name could not be trademarked the name was changed to Ximian on 10 January 2001. Nat Friedman was the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Ximian from its founding to 2001 when Ximian brought in David Patrick as CEO and President. Friedman became Vice President of Product Management. The company's business model was based on providing a mix of

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

and

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

, solutions and services. Ximian was a founding member of the

GNOME Foundation GNOME Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Orinda, California, United States, coordinating the efforts in the GNOME project. Purpose The GNOME Foundation works to further the goal of the GNOME project: to create a computing platfor ...

and the

Desktop Linux Consortium The Desktop Linux Consortium (DLC) was a non-profit organization which aims at enhancing and promoting the use of the Linux operating system on desktop computers. It was founded on 4 February 2003. Members *Ark Linux *CodeWeavers * Debian *KD ...

. Ximian was acquired by Novell on 4 August 2003 to improve its offerings of Linux for the enterprise. Novell was in turn acquired by

The Attachmate Group The Attachmate Group, Inc. was a privately held software holding company based in Houston, Texas in the United States. The major companies held by the group were Attachmate, NetIQ, Novell, and SUSE. Attachmate was owned by Wizard Parent LLC� ...

on 27 April 2011. In May 2011 The Attachmate Group laid off all its US staff working on

Mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanese b ...

, which included De Icaza. He and Friedman then founded

Xamarin Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned San Francisco-based software company founded in May 2011 by the engineers that created Mono, Xamarin.Android (formerly Mono for Android) and Xamarin.iOS (formerly MonoTouch), which are cross-platform implementation ...

on 16 May 2011, a new company to continue the development of Mono. On 24 February 2016, Microsoft announced that they had signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin.

Products

Ximian both developed new products and "polished" existing free software projects to provide more consistent operation. These projects were packaged into its Ximian Desktop product — a range of integrated applications intended to provide all the tools a typical business user might require. So-called "Ximianized" versions of

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...

, and

Gaim Pidgin (formerly named Gaim) is a free and open-source multi-platform instant messaging client, based on a library named libpurple that has support for many instant messaging protocols, allowing the user to simultaneously log in to various s ...

were released, along with the following completely new products: * Ximian Evolution * Ximian Connector *

Red Carpet A red carpet is traditionally used to mark the route taken by heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions, and has in recent decades been extended to use by VIPs and celebrities at formal events. History The earliest known reference to ...

* Bonobo *

References

External links

Copy of official website on the Internet Archive
{{GNOME American companies established in 1999 GNOME companies Linux companies

History

Products

Further reading

References

External links