Linuxcare yesterday announced a major cash injection and a raft of acquisitions to drive its plan to become the number one pure-play services company operating in the enterprise Linux arena. On the funding front, Linuxcare has raised $32.5 million from a number of VCs and technology companies, including Dell (for which it currently provides Linux tech support for workstation users), Sun, Oracle and Motorola. The funding will be used to found international offices, to be called Global Centers of Expertise (GCE), each focusing on a specific aspect of Linuxcare's business, including application porting, device-driver development, custom Linux distributions and applications, Linux security audits, open source strategy consulting, network management, performance optimisation, parallel computing and clustering, and Web and email server offerings. To kick-start the GCE roll-out, Linuxcare has bought three Linux companies: Canadian services company Puffin Group, Seattle-based documentation specialist Cheek Consulting and Prosa, a developer of Linux device drivers, based in Padua, Italy. Curiously, details of Linuxcare's anticipated IPO were not made availble, which seems odd given the current interest in Linux companies' stock. ®