Impi Linux - Company History

Company History

Impi Linux has a long history, but has managed to transform from an open source project into a company. The project started from a discussion on the South African Gauteng Linux Users Group, GLUG. The first meeting in late 2001 was held at Andre Coetzee's home and got the project off to a slow start with more discussions about the name of the distro than that of its would-be technical merits. Interestingly, one of the names initially put forward was Ubuntu. Attendees of the first meeting were: Andre Truter, Ross Addis, then chairman of GLUG, Andre Coetzee of Cubit Accounting, Craig Main, Mischa Capazario, Eugene Grimsdell, Norio De Souza, Andrew McGill, Laurens Steenkamp and others, all members of GLUG.

Impi Linux's first release, version 1, was released 1 November 2003. A few other companies provided sponsorships in the form of professional media and public relations from MIP Holdings as well as bandwidth and an FTP mirror from Internet Solutions.

The first release of Impi Linux was not widely adopted due to many technical faults and an immature installation routine.

In October 2004, following the release of version 2, Andre Coetzee started identifying potential partners and investors and engaged with a recently listed technology company then called Xantium. Xantium and Andre Coetzee signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SITA to undertake a proof of concept (POC) project. The POC was successful and eventually culminated in SITA issuing a tender, RFB 428. Xantium offered to buy Impi for R450,000, which was ultimately rejected. However Gary Fortuin (who serves as the managing director) moved from Xantium to Impi Linux.

Following the POC at SITA, Impi Linux officially became a company, Impi Linux (PTY) Ltd, in February 2005. This was at SITA's request. SITA were unable to procure from a project, so a company had to be formed. Nick Venter and Howard Lowenthal assisted Andre Coetzee and Gary Fortuin to structure the new company.

In February 2005, the fledgling company set up shop in Rosebank, Johannesburg, at which point Ross Addis joined Impi Linux full-time (although on the Cubit Accounting payroll).

In May 2005 Impi Linux exhibited at the first South African LinuxWorld in Johannesburg with a sponsorship from Arivia.kom, a South African IT para-statal company.

In August 2005, the core of the Impi Linux team (consisting of Gary Fortuin, Francis Viviers and Ross Addis) started discussions with Mark Shuttleworth. In September the deal was concluded when Mark Shuttleworth, through his HBD venture capital company, invested R10 million into Impi Linux in return for 65% of the company. Two Canonical Ltd. employees in South Africa also joined Impi Linux.

In August 2005, SITA issued the Request For Bid 428.

Impi Linux, along with eight other companies, won the tender in February 2006.

In May 2006 Impi Linux launched a partnership programme entitled “The Mile High Club” to correlate with the company’s aviation marketing theme. It is intended to give partners better access to Impi Linux's professional services and products as well as benefiting from Impi Linux's relationships with CodeWeavers and Canonical Ltd..

In August 2006 Impi Linux begun a proof of concept-cum-roll-out at the South African Department of Science and Technology, using a customized version of Impi Linux.

In 2008, Impi was purchased by Business Connection; the open source division was later shut down and the Impi project discontinued.