Caldera CEO Plots Comeback

Lindon, Utah-based company joined with Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux to create a new organization called United Linux, which aims to develop a uniform version of Linux. Now it has turned to industry veteran Darl McBride to run the company. He replaces Ransom Love, who will oversee the company's UnitedLinux work. A former Novell executive, McBride has twice been a CEO,at PointServe and SBI and Co. Most recently, he served as president of Franklin Covey's online planning business. McBride discussed with VARBusiness senior executive editor T.C. Doyle why he joined Caldera.

VB: Let me ask you a tough one: It's fairly obvious Caldera has been struggling. What, at the end of the day, convinced you this was the way to go?
McBride: Operating numbers that were similar to Red Hat's and a market cap that was, like, a fraction of Red Hat's. That's one thing to think about. In today's environment, finding a company that has revenue or starting a company that has revenue and customers is the single hardest thing to do. But Caldera is a company that has great customers...Plus, the products coming out this fall are really great, [including Volution. When I look at all this, I say. "Gosh, if we just do a few things right here and get the revenue turned around, we could have an $80 million-$100 million company." That's roughly the size of Red Hat. They have a $1 billion market cap, and they are losing money.

VB: The allure of running a publicly traded company ain't what it once was. Are you worried that messes at ImClone, Enron, Tyco, Andersen, WorldCom, etc., will make this job a living hell?
McBride: I actually factored that in when deciding about this. It used to be becoming a CEO was a badge of honor, just like starting up a dot com was. Now, it's not only not as glamorous as it used to be, it's almost scandalous with all these deals going on. I looked at that, and what I looked at real hard here was the CFO. And every stone I turned over around Bob Bench, our CFO, revealed that if there was a negative, it was that he was too conservative. That's what you want to hear in today's environment.

VB: Caldera just announced a pretty significant reorganization in May. Are you likely to follow somebody else's plan for the company, or, after some time, go your own way?
McBride: "As needed" is the key thing. We're going to give this thing every chance to succeed. The first phase, obviously, is for me to get in and see what's going on and get absorbed in the operation. The general direction the company is going in is actually one I'm pleased with. There's some great management talent here currently, and I believe we have the key components to take this thing over the top. As we get down the road, I expect to make changes on an as-needed basis.

VB: United Linux,good idea, or do you think coalitions and consortia don't work and more commercial efforts are required to make something happen?
McBride: I believe that if the United Linux group gets together and drives things more like a business, that there's huge opportunity. I think if they slowed into a Sematech-consortium sort of a model, then the results will be like those similar type of efforts,interesting standards types of things, but with what future and what direction? My vision for United Linux is what the customers are asking for. If the four companies involved in United Linux really do what they say they are going to do,which is tighten down,it is a great opportunity.

VB: It's lacking Red Hat, though. Is that a future United Linux company, or is it the enemy?
McBride: That depends on Red Hat. How strongly United Linux moves forward will probably dictate the position on how they want to play with that.