Xandros Acquisition of Linspire Angers Ex-CEO
On his blog, Carmony posted a copy of the memorandum of sale from current Linispire CEO Larry Kettler to the holders of the company's outstanding shareholders
The memo said that San Diego, Calif.-based-Linispire "hereby provides notice of the following corporate action taken without a meeting, by less than unanimous written consent of the company's stockholders on June 19." Shareholders also approved changing the name of Linispire to Digital Cornerstone.
Carmony, who is also a shareholder, wrote that he was outraged that he only found out about the sale when he received the memo on June 30, 11 days after the ink dried on the contract. Carmony particularly focuses his ire at Michael Robertson, Linispire's founder and chairman.
"He has once again completely disregarded the 100 some-odd shareholders of Linspire by pulling off this deal without a shareholder meeting," wrote Carmony. "Why would Linspire pull off a midnight, back-room sell-off without a share holders meeting? I'd ask them myself, but they haven't returned e-mails from me in the last ten months, and since they didn't hold a share holders meeting in this matter one is left to speculate. Something tells me it will take a lawsuit to find out."
In buying all of Linispire, Xandros is getting all of its assets including Linspire, Freespire, and the CNR (Click 'N Run) desktop installation platform. For his part, Robertson said in a statement that, "The Linux business is going through some healthy and necessary consolidation, which will give resulting companies greater assets and size to deliver on larger initiatives so Linux can touch more people."