Corel appears to have finally rid itself of its Linux business, which it pledged to sell off back at the start of the year.

The deal is expected to be announced today, but moles have leaked details to Reuters already. The newswire claims the buyer is a start-up called Xandros and has signed a $2 million cheque for Corel's Linux division.

Said operation was formed out of the Canadian company's most recent restructure, initiated this year after incoming CEO Derek Burney's review of the company's business. Burney first hinted he was considering selling off the distro last November, but formally put up the For Sale sign in January this year.

Corel's Linux distro was separated from the Linux versions of Corel's application software in order to make it easier to sell the thing off. The distro was launched in 1999, part of Corel's plan to find commercial success on the back of the open source operating system. The plan largely failed, just as the company's attempt to find commercial success on the back of Java had done the previous year.

Burney's sensible approach has been to refocus the company on what it's good at and best known for - ie. graphics apps and the like - and steer clear of hare-brained schemes driven by whatever's flavour of the month in the world of hi-tech. ®

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