Ximian
More info
- Founded
- Founders
- Miguel de Icaza, Nat Friedman
- Type
- Software company
- Owner
- Novell (2003)
- Known for
- Evolution, Red Carpet, Mono
Helix Code, later Ximian: the company that tried from 1999 to 2003 to turn GNOME into a product, and created Evolution, Red Carpet and Mono along the way.
Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman started it in October 1999 as Helix Code in Boston, with a monkey for a logo and GNOME for a business plan. Helix GNOME was a packaged, polished build of the desktop for every distribution, Red Carpet updated it over the network, and Evolution was to be the Outlook that Linux lacked. After a trademark dispute the name became Ximian in January 2001, coined from simian. Ximian Connector, a paid Exchange connector for Evolution, was the thing that actually brought in money.
In July 2001 de Icaza announced Mono, a free .NET, which the GNOME world received with divided enthusiasm. Ximian Desktop 2 (2003) was the most polished GNOME 2 money could buy, and in August 2003 Novell bought the company to build its SUSE desktop on it. The founders left in 2011 to start Xamarin, which Microsoft bought in 2016: a long way for a monkey to travel.