Based in Bellevue, Washington, Centeris has been set up by former employees of Microsoft and application performance services provider Keynote Systems Inc, and has been backed by Brad Silverberg, founder of Ignition Partners and former Microsoft senior vice president.
Ignition is funding Centeris to the tune of $5m based on the potential market for its Likewise product, which provides Windows-based management tools for administering Linux servers, enabling the use of the Microsoft Management Console to manage Linux servers.
The Likewise product, currently in its third beta release and scheduled to be generally available in December, includes the Likewise Console, which runs on Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server, and the Likewise Agent, which runs on Red Hat Inc’s Enterprise Linux 4.0, and Novell’s Inc’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Professional, and openSUSE products.
The company is also planning to offer a stand-alone component of Likewise as free open source software later this year.
The company was founded by chief architect Brian Moran, VP of marketing Chuck Mount, VP of product development Manny Vellon, and board member Dave Feinleib. Moran, Vellon, and Feinleib are former Microsoft employees, while Moran was also at Keynote with Mount.
The company is headed up by chairman and chief executive Barry Crist, who was previously vice president at Mercury Interactive Corp with responsibility for the application management business in the Americas.
