Netraverse Win4Lin in trouble or out of busienss?

[Richard Adams]

sarahegbert00 at yahoo.com (Sarah Egbert) wrote in message news:<d267d1c5.0108160824.75aec072 at posting.google.com>...
> Does anybody know what is happening with Netraverse the company who
> makes Win4Lin? They appear to have closed down, their offices are shut
> down and phones disconnected. Their internal user newsgroup is saying
> most of their developers have been fired.
> 
> Their Web site (www.netraverse.com) looks like business for ususal. I
> wonder what happens if you try to buy anything from them - I'll let
> somebody else find out that one :(
> 
> I guess it is welcome back to Wine for me...
> 
> Sarah

Yes they having some sort of problem this is what their CEO just
posted to their user group email list. Sort of sucks they have not
owned up to this publically -

From: "James Curtin" <jcurtin at netraverse.com>
Subject: [Win4Lin-users]Re: Netraverse out of business? 
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 13:19:38 -0500 

Dear Users,

Thank you for your support and your concern. Rumors running rampant
are in no one's interest - so in the interest of putting these at
ease, let me explain what is happening.

We are not unaffected by the current drought in capital spending and
capital investing. Like most companies, we are doing our best to
manage in this environment. We have scaled back our headcount and have
retained, by internal consensus, the key engineering resources and
support resources(and management and marketing and business
development) to preserve the value of our company and product. No, we
have not cut all our development staff. We have 18 people on payroll
and 3 others on commission. The majority of the 18 are development and
support. We did lose some folks that were active on the user lists and
in supporting customers, but we have retained our best and most
motivated engineers.

Our imperative is to get in the black as quickly as possible - we are
almost there. The founders and original investors in the company have
been carrying the shortfall, but revenue growth and/or new investment
is needed to keep things going over the long run. Fortunately, our web
sales are picking up, our retail sales in the US are starting to grow,
we have just added distribution in 10 new countries, we have signed on
(in the past month) 25 VARs in the US and Canada and new customers
continue to fill the direct sales pipeline. We also continue to have a
number of active investor prospects.

The good news is that Linux, and our products, are geared towards
weathering down markets. We believe that we offer users a compelling
opportunity to increase reliability and security while lowering costs
with respect to Desktop Total Cost of Ownership. Of course, you folks,
as our customers know this. (BTW, our marketing department could
always use your testimonials and anecdotal benefits - always, love to
hear them).

Of course, the scaling back has not been easy - some good people have
moved on - but, we are continuing to add new functionality and are
continuing to work on new releases (some exciting features will be
coming over the next weeks and months). We are also maintaining our
customer support. We continue to provide email support as usual. Our
telephone support for partners and large customers is also still in
place. We have never offered phone support for retail and consumer
customers, though we are happy to provide whatever support we can as
needed.

Our situation with Computer Associates is not exactly as rumored. We
have a worldwide, perpetual, exclusive, irrevocable, etc, etc, etc...
license from Computer Associates. When we finish paying off a certain
royalty amount, the copyright transfers to us and we then 'own' the
technology. What we have today is the equivalency of ownership as
Computer Associates themselves have no right to sell the product. This
is a non-issue and whoever started the rumor did not understand the
issue.

We maintain the highest respect and appreciation for our customers. We
have
tremendous pride in our product. We are confident the current
downsizing measures will achieve the desired results. We appreciate -
and need - your continued support. This is a great product and your
help in getting the
word out, and generating new sales, is the most fundamental ingredient
to our success.

I hope that this note answers your questions. We are not going out of
business. We are taking appropriate measures to ensure that. We are
taking these measures with a view to continue the development of the
product and the support of our customers.

Thanks, again, for your support.

Jim


James P. Curtin
President and CEO
NeTraverse, Inc.