Tuesday January 04 2005:

Mandrakesoft announced today the availability of two new products geared toward business customers; Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop. These two Linux systems have received specific development efforts to make them "enterprise-ready". The two products feature longer development cycles and a 5-year maintenance span.

Although Mandrakesoft's main focus has been to make Linux available to the largest number of users, the company has also acknowledged, very early, that Linux required specific adaptations to be functional in a business environment. Mandrakesoft introduced the first version of Corporate Server in September 2000, followed by a second version in early 2003 - two products which have received quite an enthusiastic response. The new version, introduced today, has been thoroughly overhauled to include some major new features. Mandrakesoft's range of enterprise products extends to include Corporate Desktop; a Linux system for business desktop computing.

Both products have been designed to make deployment as simple, fast and painless as possible. The goal has been to keep them efficient and adaptable. In the now-established Mandrakelinux tradition, both feature extensive hardware auto-detection and numerous configuration wizards to get started as fast as possible. They are also very flexible, in the sense that the user-friendly interface does not lock away the administrator from system internals - they have full latitude for tuning Corporate Server and Desktop in every way, and adapt them to a specific environment.

The new Corporate Server, based on a 2.6 kernel, is fit for almost any server task. It has configuration wizards for setting it up as a file server, print server, Web server, directory server, FTP server, and a dozen others. It is also compatible with IBM's database server, DB2. Auto-installation through PXE is remarkably easy. There are unique tools (DrakPark and Mandrakeonline Pro) for facilitating site-wide software maintenance, based on Mandrakelinux's state-of-the-art urpmi system. Enterprise hardware, such as S-ATA drives, is supported out-of-the box on 32 and 64-bit platforms.

Corporate Desktop was made for the coming wave of Linux adoption: Linux on the desktop. Although it is a natural match to Corporate Server, it can be made to fit in any heterogeneous environment. A lot of effort has gone into ensuring interoperability: Drakauth, for example, lets administrators choose between several authentication and directory systems - LDAP of course, but also Active Directory. Corporate Desktop only carries software that has been thoroughly tested and known to be appropriate for a business setting. It is immediately usable as a workstation for office/productivity tasks, groupware and email, and its extensible design means it can be used for other tasks as well (development for example).

Both Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop benefit from a longer development and test cycle over home editions of Mandrakelinux, and from the feedback given by Mandrakesoft's enterprise customers. These systems can be blindly relied on for production use. The five-year maintenance cycle is meant to fit in with the natural pace of product renewal in IT departments. Support is of course also included, with various options for scope and span. Part of the added value is also in the commercial software included, which ranges from Citrix and NX clients to CodeWeavers' CrossOver Office Server Edition.

"It's quite challenging to design enterprise products, because the needs of businesses are more difficult to assess and to cater for. But we've listened to our customers, we've dedicated the necessary time and resources to the task, and now I must say we're quite proud of what has been achieved. I think going for Mandrakesoft Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop is a pretty coherent business decision, even more than just going for Linux, which everybody is doing or about to do anyway.", said François Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO.

Corporate Server and Corporate Desktop are available now for pre-order. More information is available at: https://mandriva.com/business/corporate-server

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular MandrakeLinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).

Press Enquiries
Gael Duval/Simon Barthelme
+33 1 40 41 00 41
[email protected]
mandriva.com

Tuesday December 21 2004:

Paris, France; December 21, 2004. Major European research institutions and Open Source software companies today announced the launch of EDOS, a project dealing with complexity management in the field of Open Source software. The participants will collaborate in the development of theoretical and technical solutions to the management of large-scale, modular software projects. EDOS will receive EUR 2.2 million in European Union funding, in a total budget of EUR 3.4 million.

Software projects have grown to unforeseen levels of complexity. For example, most recent Linux operating systems are comprised of thousands of individual packages. This makes putting together such a system a difficult task; and the short release cycles traditionally practiced in Open Source software mean that this task has to be constantly repeated. This is the case, not only for Linux, but for any large, modular software project.

Consortium members are more specifically concerned with the issue as it appears in Open Source projects. As the amount of Open Source software grows, so does the problem of complexity. That does not mean, however, that nothing can be done about it. Today the building and testing processes are only partly automated, leaving much room for improvement in productivity and quality testing. Participants in EDOS, which stands for Environment for the Development and Distribution of Free Software, will research and implement new ways to manage complexity in Open Source software. The team includes 6 research and academic institutions and 4 software and services companies (see full list below).

Two particular applications are planned. The first one deals with the build process: a distributed, peer-to-peer application, designed to aid the integration of the many software parts that make up a Linux system, will be developed. It is expected that the move from a centralized build and storage process to a distributed one will greatly increase efficiency, because storage and computing capabilities will increase exponentially, and so will network throughput. Resources are not the only problem at hand: intricate problems of dependencies between units inevitably arise in large projects, with every part depending on many others for their proper operation. EDOS members intend to find ways to deal with this problem in a systematic way, using the tools of theoretical computer science.

"There's an issue any large project has to deal with at some point, and that's how to manage complex dependencies between parts so as to get an integrated, coherent whole.", said Roberto Di Cosmo of Paris 7. "This is getting crucial for Open Source software projects as well, because more and more time is being wasted on management issues. We will propose a solution to this problem using formal methods from theoretical computer science, a research area which is particularly strong in France".

The second one deals with quality testing. Free software today lacks a test suite that is both automatic and comprehensive. Testing a Linux OS, or indeed any large application built on Free/Open Source software, is a time-consuming and essential operation. Part of EDOS' plan is to develop tools to make testing more efficient and more comprehensive. A unified, computer language-agnostic framework will allow developers to easily create test modules for their software. Overall quality should greatly improve as a result.

"It is next-to-impossible to manually test every single function in a large piece of software", declared Anton Anisimov of SOT. "Having a program do it is only natural. A comprehensive, effective test framework will save developers, testers and users a lot of time and will save organizations a lot of money. We believe this will be a major contribution to future software development".

EDOS will receive European Commission funding in the amount of EUR 2.2 million. The project runs for a period of 30 months. The resulting software will be released under an Open Source license, and theoretical results will be published in scientific journals as advances are made.

"The concrete results EDOS will bring about will benefit everyone, not just Open Source developers. EDOS brings together some of the field's most prominent players, to solve the problem of complex dependencies before it becomes unmanageable and to improve testing processes. This will result, in the short term, in better software. Ultimately, it will also contribute to Europe's competitive edge in the world market", concluded Francois Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO.

Participants

Research and Academic Institutions
- INRIA, France (Project Coordinator)
- University of Paris 7, France
- Tel-Aviv University, Israel
- University of Geneva, Switzerland

Wednesday November 10 2004:

Mandrakesoft has just released Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64, a version of its Linux Operating System that runs on AMD x86-64 and Intel EM64T architectures. Linux has always been ahead of the competition in this area: it was the first operating system to support 64-bit architectures. This new release of Mandrakelinux, featuring EVP and mixed software support, will help ensure Linux is the only reasonable choice when it comes to 64-bit the future of computing.

Two weeks ago, Mandrakesoft released Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official, the main branch of its operating system. This release featured extended support for mobile devices, better hardware compatibility, and major application upgrades. Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64 has all of these features, and new features of its own: Mandrakelinux now supports Intel EMT processors, EVP, and mixed 32/64 bit software management. It ships with a large amount of quality Open Source and commercial software, and should be perfectly suited to any kind of 64-bit workstation.

Mandrakelinux is now every bit as stable on 64-bit platforms as it is on 32-bit machines. The software has been optimized to take advantage of 64-bit Intel and AMD processors. Mandrakelinux for x86-64 upholds the new processors' promise of speed. Applications of all types run faster on 64-bit hardware than on 32-bit hardware, and any piece of software that requires heavy computations (video editing for instance) will pick up speed in a spectacular way.

Users who still need to use 32-bit software are not out of options: Intel and AMD 64-bit processors have the capability to run 32-bit code, and Mandrakelinux makes that simple. Support for legacy (32-bit) software has been improved: Mandrakesoft's software manager makes it easy to run and maintain 32-bit and 64-bit software on the same machine.

EVP (Enhanced Virus Protection) is now also available under Mandrakelinux. Using the so-called NX bit, parts of the computer's memory can be prevented from being executed thus providing additional protection against viruses and buffer overflow attacks. Linux's natively high level of security goes one important step further.

In ten years' time, 64-bit computers will be on everyone's desktop. It's a fair bet that Linux will be there as well. But there's no need to wait ten years Mandrakelinux x86-64 makes that possible now. A x86-64 Linux system is the system of the future, in hardware and software. Mandrakesoft is proud to make user-friendly 64-bit Linux computing a reality, commented François Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO.

Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64 ships with a large quantity of software. It has applications for Office (e.g. OpenOffice.org), Internet (Mozilla), Multimedia, hundreds of tools for Development (compilers, interpreters, etc.), and a lot of specialized software (from 3D rendering to finance applications). Advanced desktop users are bound to find something to fit their needs, and the convenience and ease-of-use of a Mandrakelinux system ensures that being on the cutting-edge is peaceful, not painful.

Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64 is compatible with the following CPU's: AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel Xeon 64, Intel EM64T.

Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64 can be pre-ordered now from Mandrakesoft's online store. It will soon be available through retail channels worldwide. Mandrakelinux 10.1 for x86-64 includes:

• One DVD

• Two English-language manuals

• One month of web-based, standard technical support

• A one month subscription to the Mandrakeonline updating service

• A one month subscription to Mandrakeclub

For more information, see this page.
About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular MandrakeLinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).

Press Inquiries

Gaël Duval / Simon Barthelmé
press at mandrakesoft dot com
+ 33 1 40 41 00 41
mandriva.com

Monday November 08 2004:

Not available in this language

Wednesday November 03 2004:

Moreno Valley, CA; Paris, France; November 3 2004. Ucopia, Mandrakesoft and the University of Paris' LIP6 research laboratory have just been granted a ¤1 million research grant to collaborate in advanced mobility research. The project, led by WiFi specialist Ucopia, aims at finding new ways of enabling and managing mobility in IT.

The importance mobility has taken in today's information technologies can hardly be overstressed. Laptops comprise an ever-growing part of the desktop market-share and a new generation of WiFi-enabled portable devices promises to flood the marketplace. Mobile devices are extremely widely-spread, and more and more organizations rely on wireless connectivity - the need for more advanced ways to leverage and manage the possibilities open by Wi-Fi technologies is starting to be felt. This is what GITAN is all about.

GITAN addresses three main areas of research : management, access, and applications. The first area deals with defining and implementing a model for mobility : namely, who can do what, where and how? Tools that allow organizations to define and set up such a general structure for mobility do not yet exist at this point. Access points today work most often on a all-or-nothing basis : either users are allowed access or they aren't, and if they are all services are accessible. GITAN will allow fine-grained model definitions of the type : all users of category such-and-such are allowed access to Intranet services in areas X and Y - a kind of flexibility as yet impossible.

The ever-growing importance of business mobility increases employees needs of being connected to business applications and services anywhere and anytime says Didier Plateau, CEO of Ucopia Communications. With solutions for mobility management, Ucopia contributes to professional mobility development. IDC counts 75 million mobile professionals in Western Europe. The GITAN project will satisfy these demands by developing solutions which answer business mobility needs and requirements.

The second area is concerned with automatic discovery of services and transparent access to them. WiFi access software can currently only detect whole access points for coherence with the project's approach to management, users need to know exactly what services are available to them, and ideally access to those services should be transparent. Mobility software developed within GITAN will let users know, for example, that they have Intranet-only access in certain areas and will permit smooth transition to an Internet-enabled zone without any need to reconfigure access settings. Mandrakesoft, publisher of the Mandrakelinux Operating System, will be in charge of implementing those features under Linux, and will integrate the results in future version of its products.

Mandrakesoft has done a lot in the direction of mobility recently, with the release of products such as Move and GlobeTrotter. We've also managed to strengthen our offer of services to corporate organizations., comments François Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO, GITAN comes in the direct continuity of both efforts. It means our customers can expect a lot of positive developments in terms of mobile technologies, and it also means we're are committed to continued R&D investments.

GITAN's third area of research involves new uses for WiFi technology : Voice-Over-IP, Videoconferencing, and Web-conferencing. Although those are all well-established features of regular networks, getting them to work in an optimal way using WiFi connections is an area that is in need of more research. LIP6, the University Pierre et Marie Curie's Computer Science research laboratory, will be in charge of advancing research in that field. GITAN chose to focus on those particular technologies because their future as a staple of corporate mobility can't be doubted it is a natural extension of their current success in the non-mobile world.

The research grant for GITAN was awarded by French agency ANVAR. The total amount is ¤1.03 million. Ucopia will receive 32% of that amount, and Mandrakesoft 37%. The project runs for a period of 24 months. Public release of the technology and software developed as part of the contract is scheduled at the term of the period.

About Ucopia Communications

Ucopia Communications is the leading vendor of mobility management solution. Ucopia offers solutions to users of wireless networks for secure and trouble-free business mobility. The Ucopia solution enables employees and visitors within an enterprise, a campus or an administration to securely connect to a wireless network and seamlessly access the Internet, Intranet, and Extranet applications and services. Ucopia is a founder of the WLAN SmardCard consortium which is a major new initiative established to define specifications to enable the use of smart cards on Wireless LAN networks. Ucopia has recently won the CIO trophy (CAPITAL IT) for its progressive technology, responding directly to todays big business needs.
http://www.ucopia.com/

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular MandrakeLinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).

Press Inquiries

Gaël Duval / Simon Barthelmé
press at mandrakesoft dot com
+ 33 1 40 41 00 41
mandriva.com

Wednesday October 27 2004:

Moreno Valley, CA; Paris, France; October 27, 2004

Mandrakesoft announced today the release of Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official, the latest version of its leading Linux Operating System. Notable new features include extended support for mobile devices, better hardware compatibility, and major application upgrades. Following a successful Community release, 10.1 Official will be the basis for a large part of Mandrakesoft's range of products. The value-added packs (Discovery, PowerPack and PowerPack+) are available now for pre-orders and through the Mandrakeclub on-line service. Prices start at EUR 44.90 / $49.90.

Mandrakelinux was designed, from the start, with the goal of turning Linux into something that would appeal to the largest possible number of people. The latest version, Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official, does not stray from that path. Hardware support has seen much progress Mandrakelinux will now run on a larger number of configurations and support more devices. The rising demand for mobility has been taken into account, with several improvements in that area. Better ease-of-use, new software, and changes in the system's underlying technology, complete the picture. Mandrakesoft will integrate this new technology into a coherent commercial offering that features quality documentation and many on-line services.

Improved Hardware Support and Extended Mobility

A lot of work has gone into extending the (already wide) range of compatible hardware. Mandrakelinux's renowned hardware management software now detects and automatically configures a large number of devices - from USB storage devices to network printers.

Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official features out-of-the-box support for Intel®'s Centrino® Chips, an extremely widespread mobility solution on laptops. Laptops themselves are better supported, with Mandrakelinux being the first Linux OS to enable easy advanced power management. Wi-Fi users will be delighted to learn that roaming is now a feature Mandrakelinux will detect and remember access points. And it is now possible to use BlueTooth devices with your Mandrakelinux PC which concerns many cell phones and PDAs.

A Better User Experience

Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official carries both Gnome 2.6 and a very stable KDE 3.2.3 (with KDE 3.3 being offered as an option), two excellent desktop environments. Other notable new versions of software include a new version of the Mozilla web browser and the Gimp image editing program. The configuration and administration tools are now more complete and even easier to use.

The technical infrastructure has also changed quite a bit. This new version is based on a more recent, fine-tuned kernel, a new compiler and a new device manager. Mandrakelinux's package management software (urpmi), now in version 4.5, does its part to make the system more coherent as a whole.

All those new pieces have been thoroughly tested through the recent release of Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community. Specifically made for advanced users of Linux, the Community release helped make Official as stable a release as possible.

Our new release scheme is starting to show its full potential, said François Bançilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO. 10.1 Community was quite a successful product many people use it, and the feedback they gave us really helped us polish 10.1 Official. This release will be one of quality and continuity in innovation better parts and a better whole.

A sound basis for new products

Mandrakesoft will release three new products based on Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official: Discovery, PowerPack and PowerPack+. The three packs include documentation and various services.

• Discovery is a very good way to get started in Linux: it is simple, lean, and well documented. It includes a user manual, and one month of support for EUR 44.90 / $49.5

• PowerPack is a Linux OS for advanced desktop use. It is incredibly complete (6 CDs, thousands of applications) and fit for multiple uses (development, multimedia, etc.). It includes two months of support and two manuals are included (EUR 79.90/$84.90)

• PowerPack+ lets users set up small and home networks quickly and simply. It has all the desktop capabilities of PowerPack, plus advanced server features. PowerPack+ features a full groupware solution. It includes three months of support, five phone support incidents and two manuals (EUR 199.90/ $229.90).

All will benefit from new features in Mandrakelinux 10.1.

Availability

Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official packs will be available for retail worldwide in mid-November. They can be ordered now from Mandrakestore, our E-commerce platform.

Mandrakeclub members have download access to Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official.

• Standard Members and above: Immediate access to Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official Download: three Install CDs plus a fourth 'Extra applications' CD

• Silver Members and above: Immediate access to Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official PowerPack CD ISO images 6 CDs or one DVD.

• Gold Members and above: Immediate access to Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official PowerPack+: three Install CDs plus five additional CDs of extra applications. This offer includes the Kolab groupware server.

• Corporate Club Members have download access to all Mandrakesoft products, including Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official packs.

Public access to Mandrakelinux 10.1 Download will follow in 3 weeks.
For more information, see :
https://mandriva.com/products/101

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular MandrakeLinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).
mandriva.com

Press Inquiries

Gaël Duval / Simon Barthelmé
press at mandrakesoft dot com
+ 33 1 40 41 00 41

Tuesday October 19 2004:

Moreno Valley, California; Paris, France; October 19, 2004

Mandrakelinux PCs have been available since July in Planete Saturn stores. The operation's success highlights Linux's growing importance in the personal computer market.

The time when Linux was considered an Operating System confined to technical types and server rooms is over. The efforts of free software actors, among them Mandrakesoft, has payed off: Linux is now both powerful and accessible. The commercial success of Mandrakelinux PC's sold in Planète Saturn stores stands as proof of that. Planete Saturn is a branch of Media Saturn Holding, the European retail leader in home electronics and appliances.

Planete Saturn is the first company to offer Linux personal computers for sale in its stores nation-wide. The PC's have met with great commercial success: all units have been sold and Planete Saturn has just begun to offer a new configuration.

"A new Linux PC has been available in our stores since the 6th of October", said André Pichon, head of sales at Media Saturn France. "The third one since July, this new PC is more powerful, running a 3 GHZ Intel ® Pentium 4 ® processor, for a price of 499 ¤. We hope that, like the two preceding offers, it will meet a great demand. The last two were aimed at cost-conscious customers (they were priced respectively at ¤299 and ¤329). With this new offering, we're extending our range to meet the needs of our more technologically-oriented customers".

Linux's future as a desktop operating system seems bright. A modern Linux system such as Mandrakelinux has a number of purely technological advantages: better stability and security, to name but two, however, cost is also an obvious advantage. Hardware solutions running Linux and open source software are highly competitive. For ¤299, Planete Saturn customers could acquire a system that has a complete Office suite and powerful tools for Internet and Multimedia applications. Linux can thus be used to drive down the costs of new technologies.

"Linux has incredibly broadened its range of applications these last few years", commented François Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO. "The success of Planète Saturn's Mandrakelinux PC's are evidence for how adaptive our products are. Offerings of this kind have very good prospects."

More information about Planete Saturn is available (in French) at their website.

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular MandrakeLinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).
mandriva.com

Press Inquiries

Gaël Duval / Simon Barthelmé
press at mandrakesoft dot com
+ 33 1 40 41 00 01
mandriva.com

Tuesday October 12 2004:

Paris, France; October 12th 2004;

In 2003, at the World Summit on the Information Society, representatives of the international community made the bridging of the North/South information gap their primary goal. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the ADEN cooperation program, and Mandrakesoft, European leader in Linux systems, intend to put Open Source software at the service of this goal. The ADEN pack is an economical and flexible solution for Internet centers of the South.

ADEN : To Connect, Train and Produce

ADEN's aim is to foster the development and use of Information and Communication Technologies in Africa through the creation of a network of public Internet access points. ADEN will set up sixty public Internet access points, train instructors, provide a suitable environment for local content and software production. The general aim is to create favorable conditions for the exchange of ideas and skills and encourage inter-cultural dialogue.

For ADEN to attain its goal an easy-to-use, multi-lingual and adaptable software solution was needed. The Open Source ADEN Mandrakelinux pack has been designed with those very constraints in mind.

The ADEN Mandrakelinux pack : an Open Source solution for digital inclusion

Volunteers from every country collaborate in the writing of free software, software that everyone is free to use, modify and redistribute. Mandrakesoft's own Mandrakelinux Operating System is itself Open Source software. Its open mode of development along with the company's experience and skills allow Mandrakesoft to produce stable, high-performance and easy-to-use products.

The ADEN-Mandrakelinux pack is built around a version of Mandrakelinux customized for use in an access point environment it is meant to be just as easy to set up and administer as to use. The pack will evolve according to feedback from field-workers, administrators and users. The ADEN website will centralize those reports and Mandrakesoft will analyze them. From the programmer to the end-user, the worldwide community of free and Open Source software, and particularly that part of the community that resides in countries of the South, will drive the development process to fit the product to their needs.

Mandrakesoft is of course very proud to be part of ADEN, comments François Bancilhon, Mandrakesoft CEO. It's in everyone's interest to see modern communication technologies spread to every part of the world. To put our skills at the service of that cause is only natural. And there's one very interesting thing going one here that's how Linux and Free Software in general are adaptive. They're used in environments as different as that of a large commercial bank in Singapore and a cybercafé in Burkina-Faso. Free Software is becoming the lingua franca of the world information society.

The African instructors, coming from 13 English, French and Portuguese-speaking countries, will help set up the ADEN access points starting in 2004. They will be the first to discover and test the ADEN pack in November in Yaoundé (Cameroon). The pack will then be available as a free download from Mandrakelinux and ADEN websites.

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular Mandrakelinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext March Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).

Press inquiries
Mandrakesoft
Gaël Duval / Simon Barthelmé
press at mandrakesoft dot com
+ 33 1 40 41 00 01
mandriva.com
French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Pierre Bonis
[email protected]
+33 1 43 17 88 39.
www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/thema/dossier.asp?DOS=NTIC
www.africaden.net

Thursday October 07 2004:

Not available in this language

Wednesday October 06 2004:

Moreno Valley, CA; Paris, France; October 6th, 2004.

With the release of Mandrakesoft's new Move, Linux becomes a viable option to millions of first-time Linux users. A « live » Linux system that teams up with a USB key, Move lets beginners get a first taste of Linux and gives advanced users a full Linux system they can take anywhere.

While overall Linux usability has made great strides in recent years, thanks notably to Mandrakesoft's famed installer and state-of-the-art hardware detection, switching to Linux is still a daunting task to a lot of computer users very often because they are afraid of damaging their system and cannot afford to do so. For them, and others, Mandrakesoft has designed Move, the successor to its very successful MandrakeMove product.

Move has a number of features that make it well-suited to Linux beginners. It requires neither installation nor configuration everything is fully automatic, including hardware detection. Starting up Linux couldn't be easier all one has to do is turn on one's PC and insert the CD in the drive. In no time, a complete Linux environment is at the user's fingertips. Move does not make any alteration to the host system, so the system is safe. It is all contained in one CD, making it impossible to damage Move short of damaging the CD.

Move is also a great tool for those who want a portable Linux environment. Along the lines of Mandrakesoft's recently released GlobeTrotter, Move lets users carry around both settings and files on a USB key. Move remembers hardware profiles for shorter startup times, and can store up to 1.5 GB of data on the key. Move fits a small Linux workstation in one CD and a USB key.

At Mandrakesoft we've always considered ease of use a priority., said Mandrakesoft CEO François Bancilhon. With Move we've tried to reach out to those users still put off by the aura of technicality that surrounds Linux. It's a product that is straightforward, practical and safe to use flattening out that dreaded learning curve. It is both a good environment for trying out Linux being a live distribution - and something that you can use to get real work done, in a mobile way.

Based on Mandrakesoft's Mandrakelinux 10.0, Move has all the stability and power of a modern Linux system. With over forty applications, including Linux equivalents to prominent Microsoft® Windows® applications, Move caters to all Internet, Office and Entertainment needs. From the office suite OpenOffice.org to the popular image editing program The GIMP, Move packs a maximum amount of functionality into just one CD and it is all ready for anyone's desktop. And to make that Linux dive even easier, the Move boxed product ships with a user manual (English or French), 30-day web support, and Mandrakeclub membership starting at 29.90 ¤.

More information about Move is available here

About Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft is the publisher of the popular Mandrakelinux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems available. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandrakesoft products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrakestore.com, the company's online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandrakesoft has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. "Born on the Internet" in late 1998, Mandrakesoft has offices in the United States and France. Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext March Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).

Press Inquiries :
Gaël Duval and Simon Barthelmé press at mandrakesoft dot com
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