Turbolinux
More info
- Creator
- Cliff Miller
- Released
- 1992
- Type
- Linux vendor
The Linux company that, in the late nineties, was as big in Japan and China as Red Hat was in the US.
Founded in 1992 as Pacific HiTech by American Cliff Miller, who sold CD-ROMs of free software in Japan. Its own distribution, Turbolinux, became the leader in Japan and later China, shipping preinstalled on servers from Asian manufacturers. Intel and several venture firms invested, and an IPO was lined up for 2000 – right as the dot-com bubble burst.
The listing never happened. In 2002 Turbolinux joined UnitedLinux with SUSE, Caldera and Conectiva to share a common base against Red Hat. That alliance fell apart, and the company changed hands several times before the distribution faded away.