Nat Friedman, the former CEO of Ximian and one time CTO of Novell’s open source efforts is back in the game.
Friedman left Novell in January of 2010, where he had been since the company (Ximian) he co-founded with Miguel de Icaza was acquired in 2003.
Now De Icaza is out of Novell with a new startup focused on Mono and his old buddy Nat is rejoining him to become the CEO.
Who didn’t see that one coming?
I first met Nat Friedman in 2004 when he was delivering his first keynote as a Novell staffer – talking at the time about the Linux desktop. No doubt he understand the tech and he has the skills to help lead Xamarin.
Xamarin however faces a number of key hurdles that Friedman will have to deal with rather quickly. Though SUSE Linux/Attachmate fired his buddies in the U.S, the President and GM of SUSE Linux told me very specifically that Mono is still part of SUSE.
Xamarin is supposed to be a company tasked with supporting and extending Mono.