Big bucks and TurboLinux

TurboLinux, often credited as the No. 4 Linux player, announced on January 17 that it received $57m (£35.34m) in its second round of funding. That’s the largest private investment ever in a Linux company.

The cash wasn’t just from venture capitalists betting on high IPO returns, either. More than a dozen technology companies pitched in to lay their money down on Linux, the technology, as delivered by TurboLinux. These companies included Compaq, Dell, Intel, NEC, Novell, SCO and Toshiba.

While exact numbers were not announced, the biggest investor appears to have been Dell.

Michael Lambert, Dell Enterprise Systems Group’s senior vice president Michael Lambert explained in a prepared statement that, "As the No. 2 PC server provider in the world and a leading provider of servers for the Internet infrastructure, Dell has taken a leadership position in offering Linux solutions to its customers." He continued, "We see our investment in TurboLinux as another example of Dell responding to global demand to offer and support key new technologies in the market."

TurboLinux already closely partnered with SCO, is pushing its lead as the high performance Linux clustering leader. The company is also the leading Japanese Linux company. In total, TurboLinux claims to have sold more than 3 million copies of Linux.

The cash from this latest round of financing will go towards building up TurboLinux’s infrastructure--support, training, professional services, sales structure and marketing programs—to prepare for further growth.

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