Since its rather humble beginnings as a husband-and-wife freeware operation, Cliff Miller’s TurboLinux, Inc. has grown into a significant force in Linux — with over 150 employees and a strong hold on the Japanese and emerging Asian Linux markets. But TurboLinux, which used to be known as Pacific Hi-Tech, has been ramping up its North American operations of late, opening up new offices in the Bay Area, launching a North American reseller program, and inking a bundling deal with router vendor Linksys. Miller met with Linux Magazine Publisher Adam Goodman and Executive Editor Robert McMillan recently to talk Linux, and to explain why he thinks his company can succeed by focusing on something that many Linux companies don’t like to talk about: selling free software.
Linux Magazine: How did TurboLinux begin?
Cliff Miller: In 1992, my wife Iris and I started this Internet CD-ROM company in our basement. I was a graduate student at the University of Utah in computer science. I was in the Ph.D. program there and my wife was working at a company called Sirius that was later acquired by Novell. When Novell acquired them, they laid off most of the sales force.
At that time, we kind of looked at ourselves and said, “Gee….
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