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Linux contender Penguin Computing names new CEO

Penguin Computing has hired a new, more experienced chief executive to try to grapple with its main competition, VA Linux Systems, and sagging investor enthusiasm for Linux.

Stephen Shankland Former Principal Writer
Stephen Shankland worked at CNET from 1998 to 2024 and wrote about processors, digital photography, AI, quantum computing, computer science, materials science, supercomputers, drones, browsers, 3D printing, USB, and new computing technology in general. He has a soft spot in his heart for standards groups and I/O interfaces. His first big scoop was about radioactive cat poop.
Expertise Processors, semiconductors, web browsers, quantum computing, supercomputers, AI, 3D printing, drones, computer science, physics, programming, materials science, USB, UWB, Android, digital photography, science. Credentials
  • Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
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Stephen Shankland
Penguin Computing has hired a new, more experienced chief executive to try to grapple with its main competition, VA Linux Systems, and sagging investor enthusiasm for Linux.

The new CEO is Martin Seyer, who led an e-commerce division and a server group at NCR over six years and handled marketing for the launch of Dell Computer's PowerEdge server division.

Penguin Computing founder and former CEO Sam Ockman will remain at the company as chief technology officer and chairman.

Seyer's job will be to raise Penguin Computing's revenue and profile to catch up to the leading Linux computer specialist, VA Linux, where Ockman got his start after graduating from Stanford University. But life in the Linux hardware business is not the easy trip to success it once was.

VA, though the fourth-largest seller of Linux computers according to IDC, has issued warnings for the last and current quarters, blaming the economic slowdown and dwindling Web-advertising revenue. Meanwhile, Tuxtops is stopping sales of its Linux laptops and is focusing instead on software.

Penguin chiefly sells servers, including its rack-mountable Relion line, the higher-end four- and eight-processor Magnus line, lower-end Altus models and I-Node models that can be ganged together in groups of 100 handling the same job.