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Caldera closes UK thin client development unit

Development being moved over to Utah

Events have overtaken our report (Earlier Story) that Caldera Thin Clients work was carrying on in Andover, UK. Following a decision by the Caldera board, the British Caldera development team has disbanded, although it is anticipated that some work will continue in Salt Lake City, with a new team. But it may prove hard to recruit people wishing to work in a DOS environment, although it would appear that there is enough DOS business to make the operation viable. Caldera CEO Bryan Sparks and PR manager Lyle Ball told The Register that it had proved too expensive to coordinate activities between Salt Lake City and Andover, especially with the time difference. Caldera's main thin client thrust is to sell a DR-DOS + Web Spyder set-top box combination as a WebTV killer, although efforts in the embedded market eill also continue. Sparks also said that Caldera has a JVM for Web Spyder in prototype for delivery at the end of the year. The previous team was contracted to finish some work on the Web Spyder browser development. A problem at present is that WebSpyder does not support plug-ins. Caldera's other unit, Caldera Systems, sees its competitor as Microsoft and NT, rather than Red Hat. PR Nancy Pomeroy commented that a rising tide lifts all ships, so that Caldera is pleased at the corporate investments in Linux obtained by Red Hat. Caldera has one investment, apart from former Novell CEO Ray Noorda's support, from Anaheim-based MTI, a data storage management specialist, but says it has no special need for cash. In Caldera's antitrust case against Microsoft, which centres on moves allegedly made by Microsoft to exclude DR-DOS from the market, there will be a series of five hearings in May and June on Microsoft's various manoeuvres to have the case dismissed. It is likely that many of the documents at present under seal will also be made public, following decisions in Microsoft's Washington trial. ®

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