A press release from Mandriva:

Paris, 22 February 2007 - Mandriva West Africa to start operations in February 2007 to offer the Mandriva Linux operating system and open source applications and solutions to individuals, educational institutions, public and private organizations, ISVs and OEMs all over West Africa.

As part of its commitment to help bridge the digital divide and make ICT affordable and available to the people of West Africa, Mandriva, the global Linux distributor, has reached an agreement to establish a subsidiary company, Mandriva West Africa, with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria.

The goal of Mandriva West Africa is to provide local distribution of Mandriva Linux and other integrated open source applications in English and French throughout the West Africa region.

Mandriva West Africa strategic goals are based on the following:

* Produce and distribute Mandriva Linux and the bundled OpenOffice.org and other bundled open source applications.

* Work with local Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to bundle Mandriva Linux with their hardware, thereby making computers more affordable for all West Africans.

* Work with Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to provide an open source integration environment for their application, thereby make their products available to the international market.

* Work with educational institutions and organizations in bridging the digital divide.

* Appoint and develop Mandriva certified business partners to provide Linux deployment and act as a support network to help individuals and organizations.

* Appoint and develop Mandriva authorized education centers to provide Linux Professional Institute-certified Linux training and create a network of certified Linux engineers and professionals.

The OEM versions of all Mandriva products are currently available and running on hardware from major international OEM vendors like HP, IBM/Lenovo, Dell and Acer. Mandriva West Africa plans to work with local OEMs in bundling these products on their hardware.

"When you own any of the products above, you don't need any other software. It is fully integrated with productive applications like OpenOffice.org, CD/DVD burner, virus protection, firewall, accounting software, web browsers, HTML editors, FTP server and client, DHCP server and client, DNS, web server, multimedia, free Skype to Skype calling, mail server and clients, instant messaging, games, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, video conferencing, SSH and TightVNC for remote access, OpenVM and VMware for virtualization, graphic applications and many more", said Dele Ajisomo, Mandriva representative for West Africa.

About Mandriva
Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrakesoft, is the publisher of the popular Mandriva Linux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems. The company offers its enterprise, government, and educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and open source software and related services. Mandriva products are available in more than 140 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandriva Store, the company's online store. Born in 1998, the company has offices in the United States, France and Brazil. More information at: www.mandriva.com