Mandriva's Metisse

[Rodneyck]

I have never tried Mandriva, but just looking at their website which is showcasing Metisse, a 3D desktop system, I must say it looks pretty cool. There is a Flash of Metisse in action.

http://www.mandriva.com/en/projects/metisse/

[23meg]

There's another recent thread on it.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=345743

[Rodneyck]

There's another recent thread on it.

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=345743



Thanks! I did not see that.

[frigaut]

Haven't you watch the video?
"Metisse is not a 3D desktop"

[Rodneyck]

Well it appears Metisse is not really paying off...

"I am writing this, because there's a story that out there that I am afraid is not being told: It's the story of the slow financial demise of Mandriva. Very very quietly, Mandriva posted their results for their most recent fiscal quarter and year on the investor page of their web site. I saw no comment on it on DistroWatch, OSNews, Slashdot, or anywhere else.

Before getting into just how bad the numbers are, let me say that I used Mandriva for a long time, and was a Silver Club member for several years, until I just recently switched to openSUSE, because I became concerned about Mandriva's future after they laid off Gaël Duval, and also, because their x86_64 support was initially very slow to materialize.

In any case, I am far from a Mandriva "basher." I am a KDE user, and I feel that among the major distro communities, Mandriva and openSUSE are really the only ones that were strongly committed to KDE. So, I am certainly not looking forward to see either one of them go.

Comparing to the previous financial news releases, I see the following primary trends:
Revenue: Full fiscal year revenue is up 1.4% (from €6.52 million to €6.61 million). However, fiscal 4th quarter revenue is DOWN 8.2% from €1.46 million in 2005 to €1.34 million in 2006.


Operating expenses: Full fiscal year operating expenses have increased from €7.62 million to €8.69 million, or 14%. However, in the fourth quarter, expenses were down from €2.27 million in 2005 to €2.07 million in 2006, an 8.8% reduction.


Operating loss: Netting operating revenue against operating expense, the loss for the fiscal year 2006 has almost doubled to €2.08 million, compared to €1.1 million in 2005. In the fiscal fourth quarter, this trend has been reversed, somewhat, as the loss seems to have shrunk from €810 thousand to €730 thousand, or 9.9% better.


However, due to extraordinary items, the net loss for the 4th quarter 2006 at Mandriva has more than doubled from €400 thousand to €840 thousand, and the full year net result has gone from essentially break-even to a €2.84 million loss.

It is worth noting that Mandriva's fiscal year ended on 30 September 2006. So the results that were posted last week are really already 4 months old, and the fiscal first quarter 2007 is already behind Mandriva. Mandriva hint in their news release that at least expenses have been contained, with the monthly expense run rate having been reduced from €670 thousand in 2006 to €530 thousand in 2007. I can only assume that this has been achieved through further lay-offs, which were not publicly announced.

Since Mandriva's shares are not traded on a regulated exchange, but rather on the Marché Libre in Paris (which is similar to the so-called "pink sheets" in the United States), they are under no obligation to furnish detailed quarterly results, and in fact they do not. So, for one thing, we do not know how much cash is left in Mandriva's coffers. Given, however, the drastic expense cuts, one has to assume that it's not much. Mandriva's stock seems to have lost about three quarters of its value over the past year; it now trades at €1.4, and trading is very thin. So raising new cash through a secondary offering seems all but impossible.

Unless revenue trends reverse very swiftly, I don't think that we will see Mandriva make it through this year as an independent public company. It will have to be sold or liquidated.

This leaves me with the following questions: What plans do the leadership at Mandriva have for the future? Are they looking to sell? If so, is there a potential buyer? How long can they last, without a cash infusion? What will happen to the distribution in the event of a liquidation? What's going on inside the company, now? Are the lead developers, package maintainers, etc. still with the company? Are they getting paid? What is their outlook? How does Gaël Duval feel about the trouble at the company that he founded, and that then kicked him out. Does he still have a financial stake in it?

It is sad to see this happen to a company that has brought me so much joy with their product. Over the years, I paid more money to Mandriva than I ever did to Microsoft (or now, Novell), but I always thought that the people there were worth it, and that their product should thrive. I hope it will continue to do so."

[AlexenderReez]

i don't sure that you all know that we can build metisse in any distro...i using metisse in ubuntu..even with beryl SVN..if you want it doesn't mean necessary to have mandriva..to know how to build it,just search in google..:lolflag:

[AlexenderReez]

http://insitu.lri.fr/metisse/#bibref-1:)