TimeSys is the provider of LinuxLink, a web-based service that helps "roll your own" users to create and customize their own commercial-grade Linux platforms. It includes the latest kernel and kernel patches optimized for given processors, glibc and uClibc toolchains, and hundreds of cross-compiled binary packages.

TimeSys has been around for 11 years, and the company underwent a major strategic shift two years ago, noted Joseph Raffa, venture partner with Adams Capital Management and TimeSys' outgoing interim CEO. That shift was from a commercial real-time Linux platform to a pure open-source offering without proprietary extensions. "Trying to create proprietary extensions on top of open source was really like swimming upstream," Raffa said. "The company decided to change focus to fully embrace open source in the Linux movement."

Raffa became interim CEO in December 2006 after Larry Weidman, TimeSys' CEO, resigned for what Raffa called "personal reasons." Raffa is moving into the position of chairman of the board of TimeSys. He said that Bansal's selection was the result of an "aggressive national search" for a new CEO.

One reason for selecting Bansal, Raffa said, is his extensive experience on the user side. Bansal was founding CEO of Laurel Networks, a telecom systems company that used embedded Linux. Laurel was sold to ECI Telecom in 2005 for $88 million. Previously, Bansal was president of the network control technology division at Fore Systems, which was purchased by Marconi in 1999.

"After I left Laurel, I was looking at the discontinuity happening in the marketplace, and open source really intrigued me," said Bansal. "At Laurel, we wanted to make sure we could harness all this innovation in open source in our own systems."

What's interesting about TimeSys, Bansal said, is that "TimeSys is not selling you a Linux platform. They are enabling people to customize Linux to their own needs. It's very different from selling a monolithic Linux platform." Bansal said he was also attracted by the level of automation that TimeSys offers, and finally by its "great people."

Bansal said that 60 to 70 percent of Linux developers are doing "roll your own" Linux, a statement that seems consistent with a recent report from Venture Data Corp. (VDC). That report said that 12 percent of systems developers said they're using the publicly-available Linux operating system (OS), but just 3 percent are using a commercial Linux OS. 20 percent of 368 respondents said they plan to use the public Linux OS for their next product, while just 5 percent plan to use a commercial Linux OS.

TimeSys currently employs around 35 people, and is seeking to expand its staffing, Bansal said. Raffa acknowledged that the company is not currently profitable, but is targeting profitability in the next year or two.

Bansal said his first priority is to "scale the web based distribution model, and make it more efficient." It's not just a delivery mechanism, he noted — it may be possible for people to do some customization, and do their own distribution, over the web. "It's hard to monetize the open-source ecosystem, but using this web-based technology is the strategic goal," he said.

TimeSys participated in the addition of real-time features to the Linux 2.6.18 kernel, and expanded its LinuxLink developer service to include real-time Linux extensions last fall. "The gap between Linux and traditional hard real-time operating systems is closing," said Raffa. TimeSys is funding ongoing work to extend Linux' real-time functionality, he said.