OStatic

Likewise Secures $10 Million in Funding; Sets Sights on New Users and Product Development

Even though the economy is rough all over, this really is one of the best times to be working in an open source company. There are advantages for those running the business, and for those using its services. Perhaps the only better arrangement would be along the lines of what Likewise Software has put together -- an open source company developing and offering support services for software that integrates and secures mixed network environments.

There are a lot of mixed networks out in the wild, of course. This is why Likewise has successfully secured a $10 million Series C round of funding, which the company plans to use to pursue growth in new markets and fund the development of its product line.

Likewise is in an exceptionally good position in terms of services offered and the need for those services. Open source solutions are increasingly appealing to businesses of almost any size regardless of industry -- and whether it was planned or completely accidental, many of those companies' networks consist of multiple operating systems. This naturally presents challenges in administering and securing those networks. At its most innocent, getting a mixed network to "play nicely" eats up a lot of time that network administrators could be using to address other issues. At its worst, it is the other issue, and authentication and group policy hiccups cause serious security problems.

Likewise's software is open source, and has the traditional economic and licensing/modification benefits that come with that model. It serves to unite open source and proprietary platforms and protocols in a simpler manner that doesn't end with sales pressure to homogenize the existing network. It doesn't make much business sense to replace half your network -- it makes sense to find a way to get what you have now to work together.

Likewise offers a few different products to facilitate network integration, including an Enterprise version, and a free (in cost, and speech) Open version -- both enabling non-Windows systems to authenticate to Active Directory domains quickly and easily. With its new round of funding, it only makes sense for Likewise to target new markets -- but it's more exciting to imagine what new development directions we'll see the software take.

• Windows
• open source
• mac
• linux
• funding
• network
• Likewise
• Active Directory
• mixed network

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