Caldera seals pan-Euro deal

Softbank subsidiary Avalon Technology has been signed as the exclusive pan-European distributor for network connectivity vendor Caldera.

Avalon will wholesale Caldera?s Open Linux and Open Dos products throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa and will be responsible for product support in local languages and the co-ordination of all pan-European ventures.

Mark Rogers, vice president of sales at Caldera, said the company provides ?Net glue? solutions, joining new and existing systems to one another and the internet.

?The partnership with Avalon takes these solutions to the next level by providing increased availability and localised product support to the pan-European market,? he said.

According to Avalon, the Unix software market in Europe was worth over $1 billion in 1996, up 15 per cent from 1995.

Ben Partridge, Avalon general manager, said that Open Linux would give the company a commercially viable, Linux-based platform with marketing and technical support. ?The European market needs powerful and economical solutions for extending and glueing networks. Open Linux does that and more.?

Caldera was started in 1994 by president and CEO Bryan Sparks and funded by Ray Noorda, former chief executive of Novell.