iTWire

Version 2.0, which was released on January 28, includes patch management, licence management, pull mode, software convergence and detailed report generation. Each of these features is based on current industry trends.

Pulse can be used to perform a comprehensive inventory of software and hardware, deploy software and security updates to all assets, create and deploy hard-disk images and files of assets, perform remote diagnostics and secure remote management, and carry out automatic and secure back-up management.

Last year, Mandriva successfully transitioned the development of its historical Mandriva Linux distribution to a community-led, independent project. The resulting project, OpenMandriva, made its first stable release in November last year.

The company arrived on the scene in 1998, as MandrakeSoft. A change of name was effected in 2005 after it lost a case filed by Hearst Corporation which had the rights to the name Mandrake. From MandrakeSoft it became Mandriva, coinciding with the acquisition of Conectiva, another GNU/Linux company based in Brazil.

Mandriva (then known as Mandrake) filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and emerged from that state the next year. In 2008, the company was badly affected by the global financial crisis and had to jettison all its external contributors.

A fork of Mandriva took place in 2010; the Mageia project is now used as the base for the parent company's server products. The workstation distribution is developed separately, by the community.