Slashdot Mirror
Red Hat Closes SF, Office, Lays Off Staff
pmccallick writes: "Wired is reporting that Red Hat just closed its SF office. The article goes beyond stating the facts to suggest that RH's business model is flawed." To be fair, the article also quotes an analyst who points out that Red Hat "has $320 million in cash on hand, that it consistently meets quarterly revenue expectations, and that its gross margins are improving."
Wasn't their SF office made up almost entirely of web designers that they hired right after their IPO, to flesh out redhat.com as a portal site?
I forget the name of the company they hired most of them away from, but it was covered here.
--
It seems to me that the word was loud and clear at the time of their IPO. "We don't want another Microsoft!" Didn't this ring in the ears of everyone with a spare 10$M under their pillow as not overtaking?
Too much ego power. *tsk-tsk*
I was thinking of it more in terms of quashing competition rather than a solid investment by Microsoft. I realize that most of RHATs value is based on people and goodwill, and that as soon as the purchase was completed, there would be little value left. However, Microsoft sets back Linux distribution (via Red Hat) and advocacy (Slashdot) pretty significantly with just a smidgen of its cash.
Of course, its all hypothetical, and I don't believe it would ever happen. But its fun to say 'what if'.
"If I am such a genius, how come that I am drunk and lost in the desert with a bullet in my ass?" --Otto (Malcom ITM)
Yeah, but if you look at this graph, you see that they went from $30 to $6 in less than a year and a half. That's a lot smaller drop. The skyrocketing value a month or so after IPO was insane, and probably due more to speculation (gambling), rather than any correlation between stock price and reality.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Wow. My kneejerk reaction is that ideas 1-4 are AWESOME. Do it, RedHat! (Would someone submit this to bugzilla under "feature request"?) 1) Drop the dumb subscriber model -- have a free login that is as good as Debian's Apt (you could learn a lot about packaging by watching "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade" run on a debian box!) 2) Have a "silver/gold/platinum" tiered subscription model, in addition to the free one, w/ guaranteed response time/login (higher level == better performance/response). Be willing to sell "one time" tickets as well as annual subscriptions. 3) Somehow, someway, accelerate the various Gnome/Nautilus/Glade and other development tools such that its easier to manage and handle projects, create docs, etc. I know there are people out there working on "javadoc" like things for c/C++ -- hire them and make it nice. 4) Consider starting/sponsoring a project to CLEAN UP /etc and /var make a GUI to handle them.
Daniel
Don't forget people who like to reward good work. I've purchased a boxed version of RedHat's 6.0-6.2(notice 7 isn't in there...). In each case I already had an ISO of RedHat burned and installed on my system, but wanted to reward RedHat for putting together a distribution that served me well. Just because the software is offered for free doesnt mean consumers won't still voluntarily compensate them for their work.
treke
When Red Hat opened that office, RH had not made some of the acquisitions it has now. That's what these layoff are about: aquisitions have created some redundancies. They have (at least) two other offices in CA, how many offices do you feel they should have in a single state??
Yes, their stock was seriously overvalued during what turned into a .com-IPO-blitz. Fortunately, they're one of the few ".com"s (I hesitate to call them that because of this) that had a (semi-)solid business model and product. Yes, its untested - but its still solid. They're making money and growing slowly, even if they aren't growing to match that initial stock price.
-RickHunter
In Santa Cruz, California I was paying $1275 a month to rent a two bedroom half of a duplex. In St. John's, I rented a three bedroom two-story house for $500, and in Maine I'll be owning a four-bedroom home for a house payment of $799 - with an oversized two-car garage.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Being from the midwest I read the short and had NO idea what an "SF office" is till I click on the article. Can the editors please expand acronyms that people who submit articles use that don't make sense to the rest of us?
For a minute I though Red Hat had closed their "sexual fetish" office and I was getting ready to send them an email demanding it back!
If they have so much cash on hand, then why are they closing offices and firing employees? Really, what's happening is that they're looking into the future, and they see that cash drying up, soon. The business model isn't working out as well as they had hoped. If they were growing like they say they will be, then they wouldn't be closing offices. This is bad news for Red Hat.
How do you know they make money? Last I checked, SUSE is a private company, and they don't disclose their financials.
1. OEM's such as VA Linux, Penguin, and hopefuls Dell and Gateway.
2. Small - Mid-Size Business Networks. Admins don't want to mess with all of the rpms and want the auto update feature, plus support.
Someone you trust is one of us.
The idea is consultancy. RedHat, being one of the biggest developers of Linux, is probably one of the best places to go to get developers for a Linux system. For example, anyone who buys Oracle Applications is free to modify the system themselves, yet Oracle has a huge business contracting out consultants for $500/hour to do modifications. The reason? Oracle built it, and they know best how to modify it. RedHat recently got a $1 million dollar contract to port the GCC/binutils/etc to a new platform. Why did they get the contract? Because they are _the_ people to go to. Its not about buying licenses, its about expanding technology, and noone can do it better than the ones who made it. I'm not saying that RedHat is the only one making Linux technology, but the more development time a company puts in, the better position they are in to say that they can handle extensions.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Could also be slacker coders and other people who are pretty much useless. We all know that every company has them, those people who bullshit so much and don't do any work, they were hired during a blitz to get more staff and the HR were so impressed by all the buzz words that they were hired. Most companies need to do this from time to time
-b
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
So something, once designated 'critical' will be critical for eternity? When I decide to drive to the store, my car is 'critical' to my 'plan.' Then, I notice the time, and the store is closed. My car is no longer 'critical' to my plans, because the plans have changed. Oh, look, a grocery store has opened in the bottom floor of my apartment building. Now I can sell off my car. Doesn't mean my finances are down the toilet. :-)
A poor analogy, but an analogy none the less.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The only weakness RedHat has is having to wait until business gets enough brains to realize that the 25% it spends on software product is always followed by another 75% of support. (Which achieves only about 50% effectiveness on the initial 25%.) RedHat *starts* with, "Where do you want to go today?" and finishes with something like, "Now that we got you here, where do you want to go tomorrow?" and so on.
This means cash flow for sure even though the margins won't ever touch Microsoft's. But someday, this model eventually takes over, and then nobody's will.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
Actually investors love layoffs. Bill Anders multiplied General Dynamics stock over 5x while he whittled the company down to nothing. I just saw a news item that Covad stock jumped up when they announced a 13% layoff. It's not too fun for employees, but Wall Street loves it.
If RedHat continues on its current path, they will self-destruct the same way pets.com did. Either that or they will just become a penny-stock company.
Here's why... Most people that use Linux are computer literate and proficient. Agreed?
Well, computer-proficient geeks like us want and need dsl or other broadband services in our homes. And as dsl ramps up more and more of us will be downloading the iso's directly and burning them ourselves.
So how's RedHat going to turn up a dime given this kind of situation?
But then RedHat already knows this, that's why they're looking everywhere else for new strategies.
Their idea of embedded systems is great, although, like vrml, who knows when it's gonna "really" make an impact...
The other is perhaps to sell a security service whereby customers can get instant emails as to when updates are available, and then, with a command or two, have it ALL updated rather than having the admin manually go in and update each individual piece.
Yes, security flaws are very very common with Linux, even more common than with Windows. Why? Because this thing is open-sourced, and there are tons of readily available cracks on the net. Sigh... I see a flame already...
They're operating, they're releasing products, despite taking a beating on Wall Street and not making a penny of profit. Since I don't have their financials on hand, and no analysts inside or outside of Red Hat seem to be freaking out yet, I think these type of the-sky-is-falling are mostly from reactionaries, or people who wish to see Red Hat fail.
Note that it can take several years for a company to make a profit after starting up, private or public. Hell, Red Hat might still fail in the end - but you can't fault them for making the attempt to succeed, and the company shows no signs of closing its doors.
They're not dead yet, not by a long shot.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I believe highly skilled management meant no management at all. Hey read between the lines or add some lines in between :)
just what IS redhat's business model? who are they selling to? i used to work in a computer store and it was only the people that had a vague idea about computers but were trying to pose as expert users that considered commercially packaged linux.
who are they marketing to, exactly?
--
It is commong practice for businesses to rationalize their departments and "cut the fat" so to speak.
In my last job I was "re-orged" about 5 times...
Big companies do this all the time..
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
1) The cost of running an office is fairly significant - especially in a costly city such as SF. With the other two CA offices, I can see why they might chose to close it. Sucks for those staffers who want to live in SF though.
2) The comments on RH management are from a former RH executive. Salt. Pinch.
3) The web strategy has been constantly "evolving". Can you say Yahoo! ? From search engine to portal to AOL-wannabe.
4) They're meeting their forecasts - generally a sign of management that understands what they're doing.
/. fails to mention that OSDN (formerly andover.net) laid off 20% of it's staff a month or two ago. And they say they don't pander to VA.
IMO, Redhat is a good $500M operation. They have lots of cash, are doing well with expectations, and are slimming down operations in the post-dotcom-internet-irrationalstockblitz era.
Investors tend to hate on redhat now because they paid an irrational amount of money for the stock. However, the stock was good but just far to expensive. It is like paying $1000 for a sack of idaho potatoes. They will be great mashed with some roast garlic...Mmmmm. They were not worth the $1000, but they were worth a buck or two.
The IPO was raised and raised and raised because everyone wanted redhat, and it went through the roof, and it was always an interesting model worth some attention, but a 25B market cap was insane! That is close to GM right now! I think redhat can sell to a small audience, but it won't ever be a 25B dollar operation.
Target price: $3, and then it gets an ACCUMULATE rating.
We have seen this scenario before.
One of the things that IS similar to your average dotcom that once attracted investors is their cash reserve. Their most recent burn rate is apparently $1.9 million per quarter. At that rate, their reserves will last perhaps 20 years. If their management is to blame, as opposed to a faulty business model, look for them to start bailing out. Quickly. The downturn in the U.S. economy couldn't have come at a worse time for Red Hat. I wouldn't go near these guys with a 10-foot pole.
Actually they opened up their finacials to the press in June 1999. Just do a search on google about it.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
What is one way to lower your competition? Make a better product? Sometimes. Better yet, buy your competition, then close their operations! Most major companies have done it at least once. Look at the auto market for example, or Microsoft.
----------------
Life isn't fair...
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
I have a solution and will reveal it only if Red Hat hires me at an hourly rate of $666.
This is not entirely true. Redhat primarily repackage and integrate. They do not develop an enormous amount of software (there is not one major software project that has been initiated and completed at Redhat).
For example, anyone who buys Oracle Applications is free to modify the system themselves, yet Oracle has a huge business contracting out consultants for $500/hour to do modifications. The reason? Oracle built it,
But Redhat didn't "build" Linux (well, they compiled it, but they didn't write it).
So why waste resources on development, and distribution packaging ? Why not just sell support ? would it not be more profitable ? THat's the problem with the "write-free-software-and-sell-support" "business" model. You're running two operations, one profitable (selling support) and one unprofitable (writing free software). So why maintain the unprofitable operation ? For example, why is it in Redhat's interests to allow their distribution to be downloaded for free, and why is it in their interests to fund software development >
I believe that is what Red Hat Network tryes to accomplish.
5) Consider dropping your distro and adopting Debian. I know you are proud of RH, but the realeases appear to have significant flaws...7.0, 6.0, 5.0 were all disasters.
Eh.. pardon me, but why on earth should Red Hat become Debian? Personally, I see no advantages in Debian except maybe apt (which is basically just aconvinient frontend to a package system and can be adapted to rpm).
I also think that RH7 is the best Red Hat I have ever used. I don't see what the "disaster" should be about.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
I can't believe how short a memory or how clueless people on this board are.
Remember, guys, RedHat bought Cygnus. Does that ring a bell?
Cygnus made plenty of money supporting custom ports of GCC and other tools for big computer vendors, especially embedded processors (intel960 anyone?).
The money from developing custom ports of the tools to new systems can be quite respectable. And Redhat having bought Cygnus gives them about
half of all the developers of the core GNU toolkit.
So I think people are just out to lunch when they say that RedHat is just a packager of Linux
distros. They are in fact an extremely high powered software development and consulting house.
Sheesh. Who do you think maintains GCC?
they have basicly no overhead, other then the cost of cd production and paying a handfull of programmers to create install scripts. as for support costs, the end user has to pay for it.
the only real flaw is that anyone can download a redhat iso and sell it cheaper, and sometimes better then redhat (mandrake) they are there own rival.
Why does coke put nice red packaging on what is essentially the same thing as generic plain-old effervescent sugar-water. It's an image thing. Throw some money at some godblessed coders, let them hack at some piddly apps and front-ends, and be a PR whore about the entire affair.
You know, it's not like RedHat is sitting around doing fuck all.
Dell, IBM, and NUMEROUS Fortune 500s suck on RedHat's TEAT to get the linux cred they so desperately want. What better way to spit in BillG.'s face than to get in bed with the enemy? Believe me, I live in the Triangle where RedHat is based. They're not exactly hurting. Ericsson, OTOH, just CLOSED DOWN their whole RTP prescence. So much for companies with physical product trumping a software "services" company.
When it all comes down to it, the jewelcase and box means shit in this day and age. Anyone trying to sell a linux distro that is not freely available will fall below the radar, PERIOD. And RedHat reaps the profit.
Before all you guys raise the ".COMs are doomed" flag, have you seen the prices in San Francisco? In the Internet age, It doesn't make sense for a .COM to keep its root in expensive places.
Just what is Redhat's business model? Long term, how are you ever going to build a business as successful as people were predicting Redhat was going to be, selling something that is free?
Sure, they can sell some CDs and some training, that's could amount to a pretty successful business, but not a software empire like Microsoft or anything of that magnitude. This is the reason that RH's share price is tanking hard.
I personally think Redhat is a good thing to have around because they employr programmers that work on things I use, but as a business they reek.
All of which are true. But until RHAT starts making money, it's still not necessarily a good investment.
It's a better buy at $6.50 than at $150. But that doesn't make it a good buy.
With $42M in revenue, you're still paying about 25 years' worth of revenue for every dollar's worth of stock you buy.
The comparables for the rest of the sector are 12 years, and for the rest of the market, two years.
Just 'cuz a stock is inexpensive doesn't mean it's cheap. Don't confuse your feel for the future of the technology (Linux) with the future of the stock price (RHAT). The market's littered with the corpses of people who've made that mistake.
The stock market's about making money, not about boosting technology. It's neither good nor bad - it just is.
Please, analysts can twist words to make anything seem under or overvalued.
If this is the case, why doesn't this analyst buy all of the $6.00 stock he/she can get their hands on?
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Who is this one disgruntled mail clerk you talked to? Red Hat is centered around North Carolina BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE IT IS HQ'ed! What kind of flat statement is that? Red Hat Management is Bob Young, Matt Szulik and a bunch of YesMen. Yeah, let's see another clueless manager get a stock price up to >250 bucks/shr. Management will always be clueless to a geek because the geek only acknowledges those who can read obfuscated Perl and compile without menuconfig.
Every mid-to-large business who uses linux buys the box version, buys the support, and hires RHCEs to maintain the internal servers. Don't think they implement things just because they had some money to burn. Everything is strategic considering they are only a seven-year old company.
OK, let's crunch the numbers, then.
...
First, having expensive real estate office space in SF with expensive duplicate staff is a waste. Due to job market, not a bad deal to be cut loose, especially if they let you keep your options.
Second, Open Source does not mean it's good business automatically. You can do Open Source in Spokane, WA, for a lot less per employee than in San Francisco, CA. Price, about a fourth, counting office space and employee costs. Or do it in other parts of the country.
Third, pricing of their stock means little at this point. My personal evaluation is they're worth about $20/share, since I priced them at $40/share at IPO. When it got nuts ($140) I sold, and bought back in at 105 (25 shares), 28 (75 shares), and 22 (200 shares). Sold the 105 shares to declare technical loss and wash out the gains from the original 14 shares I sold at 140. I still think most tech stocks are overpriced by about twice their current market pricing. I will probably buy some more RHAT this month.
Fourth, just because Red Hat is acting like a business doesn't change anything for Corel or VA Linux Systems. The latter is just a box maker, and margins are always slim in that sector. Wake me when all the IPO shares are sold out from expired lockups
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Few of the bell-weathers are off by more than 50% of their 52-week high (and Nasdaq itself is off by about as much). LNUX and RHAT are off by more than 95%. They have performed MUCH worse than the market, and other tech stocks.
I guess the concept of an IPO rush escapes you? The companies continue to putt along just fine, whatever else the market thinks.
The stock market never has been, and never will be, the be-all and end-all of Linux or other Free/OSS software.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Support is expensive and time consuming. Outsourcing makes sense.
As a Linux user it hurts me to say this but Linux is at best a 2nd rate player in the main stream UNIX market, AIX and Solaris are much better as OS for "serious" 4 CPU+ 8GB+ boxes. Redhat is now playing with these guys: and OS cost is not an issue, buy a RS6000/SP or p6xxx series and AIX is free, ditto eXXX Sun.
Anyone can sell tech support, sell me something I can't get anywhere else. How about web based applications like McAfee is offering their customers now? Or better software bundles on you distrib CD's? (I saw some Linux shipping with ViaVoice just a few days ago for $60, same price as ViaVoice without an OS is).
Burn Hollywood Burn
They still have an office in Oakland (and another in Sunnyvale). The San Francisco office is related to the acquisition of a Web development company (Atomic Vision) there. Maybe they decided they didn't need to be on both sides of the bay?
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
say so (and they won `best server solution' earlier this year from
some linux conference or another). What they don't do is try to make
support their core revenue stream, and they try to follow organic
growth (ie. build on your profits) rather than the IPO lottery.
Today that's looking like a smart strategy, though I think Red
Hat's troubles are overstated (one learns as little about the
fundamentals of a business from share prices in the middle of a run on
tech stocks as one does from them in the middle of an IPO gold rush).
Everything can be gotten for free in the RH case as well. RHN is so you can just have all your system's details entered (if you want to) and upgrades automatically installed (if you choose to), all using a high-priority server, and on all your systems.
This can of course be done manually as well -- just use your favorite RH mirror (everything is acessible for free on the mirrors) or use the up2date program, that will check your system's configuration and get the relevant updates and install them for you. So RHN is basically just a way to do this automatically and conviniently on a bunch of computers; you are of course free to write a script or something like that to do this for several systems if you don't want to use RHN.
I know of no tiered model of RHN as I described.
There are two tiers - either you get your updates yourself from a mirror, or you pay a little and get the best access to RH:s own server that RH can possibly provide you with, and the possibility to do this automatically with no trouble. I think this is exactly what you described.
RH 7.0 was a nightmare to me. The kernel wouldn't compile, PIs DRM/XFree 4.0 wouldn't compile, netscape seemed to go bonkers (even worse than usual) We tried oracle on it at work, and had to revert to 6.2...the queries would just hang the GUI.
Question: Did you even use the kgcc that is provided explicitly for kernel compiles (and all other compiles you want to use it for?). Also, I've had no problems with the XF4.01 that is provided with RH7, and no problems with Netscape either (at least none that can be blamed on any distribution).
Oracle, however, is compiled for glibc 2.1 and seems to have problem with glibc 2.2. I would wait on an upgrade from Oracle.
I like being able to use newer stuff, but I want it stable. I switched over to Debian, and it just seems very rock solid. XFree 4.0, helix-gnome, accerated openGL and quake3 -- all work great on my Debian boxes. I've never had this consistently on RH.
Red Hat has everything you mentioned. It has been rock solid for me.
Debian has a major learning curve, but I believe it is a better, more stable distro.
If you think a release every other year is good enough. Personally I enjoy getting all the new good stuff tested and packaged in a new release every half a year.
My only point is...if RH is so good at big projects and doing the GUI interfaces...and in many cases this is true...why not leave the distro integration and testing to Debian?
Because a release every other year when the current stable version has gone terribly obsolete is not good enough?
When I read the Debian bug database and compare it to RedHats...some of the people at Debian really, really shine. There are great people at RH, too....obviously. Maybe they should pool their talents...that's all I'm trying to say.
I think they do that quite well. Kernel hackers, glibc hackers, the glibc maintainer, gcc hackers, they are all working for Red Hat. To me, those people really shine.
Final good-to-read stuff would be this article with Michael Tiemann, core GNU person and Red Hat CTO.
GNU/Linux. The Freshmaker.
it was never reported in maintstream media for i don't know what reason... but at the next linux world ask any OSDN employee and they'll tell you this. hard to ask the former ones...
Cripes, this was a web company they bought in their buy whatever moves phase. It is insane for them to have multiple offices that close together and laying off a miniscule percentage of your employees just to cut fat is normal (hell my company cut a higher percentage and we dont get publicity...) This is nothing but a redhat bashing article.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yea, I'm from the UK* (and that's United Kingdom, more specifically England btw) and know I live in the Midwest and I got it too.
.uk email address on my resume at that time.
* = Yes, United Kingdom. And not the University of Kentucky like some dickhead in a 'technical' Indianapolis company thought when I was looking for jobs, and had a
--
Delphis
I bought RH @ $16 5/8 and it's down to $6 11/32. Lay off more people and drive my stock up! (*j/k*...*j/k*)
You really have to be living under a rock, or have some pretty non-existant credentials if you can't find a job in the Bay Area. SF may not have what you need, but there are opportunities heading down 101. There's a much bigger (and opportune) world out there not serviced by Bart.
"Welcome my son. Welcome to the machine."
What's that they're saying?
Doom and gloom on the horizon?
Redhat can't possibly succeed?
They MIGHT be going out of business...someday?
Congratulations, Linux, Mac users have been dealing with this crap for decades. Welcome to our world.
"Red Hat laid off personnel doing duplicate work, said spokeswoman Melissa London. "Nine acquisitions in the past year created a lot of redundancies," she said."
Regardless of the financial health of RedHat, that's a perfectly valid statement. They did a lot of buying, and now they're streamlining. This bunch of closures and layoffs isn't spelling the end of anything.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The companies continue to putt along just fine, whatever else the market thinks.
No they're not. They have not even made one penny of profit yet.
what they provided was two gigantic helpings of heresay. the only facts we have is that A)Redhat is downsizing by about 2% and B)Redhat has not actually lost money (their earnings are on target).
The article was a composite of disgruntled trash-talk and corporate ipo-babble. The only paragraphs that were actually news were the first and about the last three.
RedHat lays off two percent of their workforce
whoopty shit.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Sun Microsystems today announced their intention to lay off a third of their Marketting staff in their Solor Robotic Lab which employess three people.
Someone you trust is one of us.
My office closed down. Moving men took the phones. I emptied out the desk. I knew it was an important moment so I stood at the window and looked out. There were buildings across the street and cars going by.
Then I pulled the shades down and walked out the door.
I think about this whenever I read about offices closing in SF. It happens to a lot of people.
What the hell? Why is this newsworthy? Nine or ten people is not the end of the world!
Some of you are missing the point....
Redhat only lost 1.8 million, on close to 20 million in revenue. They are close to profitablity! They are proving the model.... sure they're not going to over take microsoft any time soon, but they are not going away. So what if they closed a office of 25 people... The story just had quotes from a bunch of laid off, disgruntled employee's....
-Tripp
Not really. Few of the bell-weathers are off by more than 50% of their 52-week high (and Nasdaq itself is off by about as much). LNUX and RHAT are off by more than 95%. They have performed MUCH worse than the market, and other tech stocks.
Yeah, I agree. These bastards should know that if you want to be successful, no sissy girl freedom stuff ain't gonna help. You've got to take the same path as Nero, Attila or Microsoft, if you really want to rid consumers of their belongings. :-)
Yes, Suse makes money, but their business model is very different from Red Hat's.
I hesitate to say whether all Suse code qualifies as Free Software or open Source, because I'm not sure. I think their installer isn't, and I'm not sure about YAST (their configuration tool). I know for sure that all Red Hat code _is_ GPL.
Anyway, I don't want to start a distro-war here, but I'm merely saying Suse doesn't have the same business model as Red Hat.
--
The imp hits!
Being an ex-employee of Red Hat (Europe), I've
experienced that Red Hat is a much better ex-employer than "current-employer":
the article is right when it says that they can't follow a strategy: their marketing strategy in Europe was very unclear and constantly changing. Result: SuSE is still very much the market leader in Germary (~80% of market share), and Mandrake which hardly existed 2 years ago, has more than 50% of market share in France.
Working at Red Hat was not a good experience for me (although you like to see plans changed on a weekly basis, but I don't)
On the other hand, Red Hat is a GREAT ex-employer.
Just add "Worked for Red Hat for X years" at the top of your resume, and post it on Internet.
I had up to 5 offers a day, and finally was offered a job that paid 50% more that Red Hat...
(and RHAT stock-options won't be worth anything before quite a while. Hopefully I'm not one of
the employees that used the offered 15% discount to buy stock at $150... that are now only worth $6.)
Can you imagine this scenerio:
Obviously this would not be a very good idea. Rural Montana doesn't have the connectivity and workforce that is necessary for a_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Andrew Tannenbaum allegedly said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a stationwagon loaded with tapes." The point is that the bandwidth you can get online can't rival the bandwidth you can get via physical media for large volumes of data. My installs from CD take around 20-25 minutes typically. And that it predictable. Downloading is more variable. If I had a CD burner, I would probably burn my own, but I don't.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
The day that businesses, big and small, are judged by the quality of their work, rather than the $/acre of their site will be the day that economic Russian Roulette and ecological suicide are placed in the museum alongside Roman ruins, Egyptian mummies and other relics of failed experiments in society.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
$18.5M in revenues!! That is just tiny for a company with this market cap (still over a Billion).
Wired takes the opportunity and the "inside" information of an anonymous redhat employee to snipe at redhat a little. Anonymous at least he wished to remain anonymous..
There is really no real need to worry, as the article sites redhat is performing well.
Not to mention these employees are being offered new positions and the layoff affects 2% of 550 people or 11 people.. this is news?
Jeremy
Alas, the only credentials that I have are a High School diploma. (did I say credentials, I ment credential. singlular)
As for going down the penisula, that was out of the question(no car/license) but, still, I wasn't looking for anything special, just an entry level posistion with technology. Basic tech support, and data entry, or even internships were impossible to find. (also, the only reason I got the job out in Pleasanton, is because my friend has a job with the same company, he got them to consider me, and I was able to get in.)
They didn't just compile it. The have internal versions of just about every package they ship. They keep track of patches for every package. If you look at the source RPMS, you will notice that there are several patches in there - certain ones are from the devel mailing lists, certain ones are from RH themselves. This is an _enormous_ job. They patch everything from the kernel to the C library, to the compiler, to X, to GNOME - EVERYTHING. So, its more than just packaging. They have to know how the whole thing works - every linker flag that could bite you in the butt, every bug for every package, all that stuff. And that makes them _very_ valuable.
Engineering and the Ultimate
This is a comment for all of you haters of Microsoft who thought that Red Hat and Linis or Linas, or Linus or whatever his name is, thought would be the next ruling operating system. I only have one thing to say: I told you so!!! Forget Microsoft, they're always going to be the slaves we want them to be making our jobs easier. Living with Microsoft isn't really all that bad, is it?
Many businesses either over-expand or have to re-strategize their spending. Unfortunatly, investors and the like tend to react and think that the company is going down when it does something like this. I think RH is stepping up to the plate by aggressively consilidating their resources. This is not a bad thing IMHO.
:).
On another note, I'm sure many of the employees that where part of the "review" in SF where quoting Office Space frequently
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I never bought a copy of redhat commercially (although a friend did). I just (legally) downloaded the ISO's and burnt copies.
Now that I'm more familiar with LINUX (2.5 years now), I'm experimenting with Debian.
Given that I wouldn't count on /. to report it, but I read just about every other Linux-related news site in existence and hadn't heard anything about this. Care to back it up?
IAAL,BIANLY
VA Linux, Slashdot's parent, isn't doing well either. The stock has dropped from 320 to 9. And they're still not making money.
What a crap article.
/etc and /var make a GUI to handle them.
How many other dot coms have plunged steeper over the same period, and have no product on the shelves at all? Quite a few. At least RH has real labs, real contracts, real projects and a real product.
Half a staff of 25 in a closed San Francisco office gets job offers in Oakland and Sunnyvale. Not to be insensitive, but out of 550 employees, this is hardly "a crisis" for RedHat.
I'll be the first to admit that RedHat has made/is making/shall make serious mistakes, but this closure is very mild (unless you're part of the half with no offer, that would/does suck, I've been there)
My advice to RH is the same as it has always been:
1) Drop the dumb subscriber model -- have a free login that is as good as Debian's Apt (you could learn a lot about packaging by watching "apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade" run on a debian box!)
2) Have a "silver/gold/platinum" tiered subscription model, in addition to the free one, w/ guaranteed response time/login (higher level == better performance/response). Be willing to sell "one time" tickets as well as annual subscriptions.
3) Somehow, someway, accelerate the various Gnome/Nautilus/Glade and other development tools such that its easier to manage and handle projects, create docs, etc. I know there are people out there working on "javadoc" like things for c/C++ -- hire them and make it nice.
4) Consider starting/sponsoring a project to CLEAN UP
5) Consider dropping your distro and adopting Debian. I know you are proud of RH, but the realeases appear to have significant flaws...7.0, 6.0, 5.0 were all disasters.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
this is good journalism. i have often wondered why "journalists" don't take it upon themselves to ask more disgruntled employees what's wrong with a company.
It seems to me that the way to figure out how to run your company is to shit-can a whole slew of people, and then ask them how the company should be run. Obviously wired news knows a reliable source when it sees one.</sarcasm>
bottom line - RH laid off ~10 people. This is headline news?
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Well, from that we can conclude that the majority of the hot tech stocks last year are on the verge of collapsing. Look at LNUX for example, a 52 week high of 320, down to 8 23/32 today. ETYS, 52 week high of 57 1/2.. trading now at 1 13/32. In reality, like many of us were saying a year ago, the bubble HAD to burst. These ridiculous IPO's where a stock went from $30/share to $300/share were totally inflated. I think now we can finally sit back and ride out the upcoming recession (which is part of the naturally occurring business cycle and doesn't have anything to do with who is in office.. whether it be George H.W. Bush or Clinton or George W. Bush. Recessions happen and we are going to have one shortly (if it hasn't already begun).
A very good point. My question would be: how many slashdotters think living/working in a traditionally high-IT location really makes better products/web sites/etc?
The headline makes it sound so bad, when it really isn't.
You're missing the point. RH had claimed that the SF office was critical when it opened, and now they are closing it? And what about that business model? It's hard to plan long-term when you base your plan on a certain market cap, and then that market cap gets slashed by 1/10th and more...
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
i used to work in a computer store and it was only the people that had a vague idea about computers but were trying to pose as expert users that considered commercially packaged linux.
I'm a student of cs in Germany. All of my fellow students use Linux one way or the other and all of them have bought pre-packaged commercial Linuces in the past.
(Of course, one of them would buy Suse 5.1 and give it to the rest, then the next gets 5.2 and gives it to the rest etc., but there is no systematic borrowing going on. I had four boxes of consecutive Suse editions lying around here before I switched to Debian recently.)
But still, I think the ratio of buyers is quite high here. Probably mostly because downloading is more expensive and less convenient over here. Still, the morale is high, too. I enjoyed ordering Suse boxes for the companies that I worked for, because I knew it supported a product, a company and a distribution scheme I like.
------------------
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Meeting your quarterly revenue expectations isn't that hard when you don't expect to earn any revenue.
You are forgetting the fact that they still have a market cap of about $1 billion (shares outstanding times share price). I don't think that their cubicles and computers would add up to $680 million.
It is intereisting to speculate that Microsoft, with $4.8 billion in cash, could buy Red Hat and VA Linux ($459 million market cap) and reduce its cash by only a third.
"If I am such a genius, how come that I am drunk and lost in the desert with a bullet in my ass?" --Otto (Malcom ITM)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It wouldn't have total control over distribution of GCC, or Red Hat Linux, or any such stuff, after all, Mandrake was originally based essentially on RHAT's distribution.
The source of market value for these companies is indeed rather "vaprous;" it is mainly in the possibility of future cash flows, and with the way that free software is "like herding cats," it won't be the Iron Fist Of Bill that would pull in the money, but rather a rather more subtle, less rigid Waiting Carefully For The Money To Perhaps Come In.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Half sounds like a lot until you realize its only about ten people. The headline makes it sound so bad, when it really isn't.
Have you read my journal today?
After yesterday's article about RPM and apt sort of playing nice, I have a question. What effect will apt in RedHat Linux have an RedHat, Inc?
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
How do they license Linux for use in the embedded devices. Aside from the obvious alternatives (pocketlinux,ucLinux) why would a manufacturer rely on Red Hat to provide something that is already in existence, in which Red Hat really has no claims to 'license' a kernel that they don't own. As far as the distribution goes, if they are licensing it to commercial vendors for embedded systems is there any packages for the at-home hackers on this system?
I think that Red Hat does have a sound product, the company does seem somewhat strange. I still do not understand their primary source of long term revenue, perhaps I never will.
The stock had been way overvalued, he said, thanks to overly enthusiastic investors who "believed Red Hat was going to overtake Microsoft. They don't believe that now." Thankfully he at least said that. Best part of the article summed up right there.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Rockland is the site of the Maine Lobster Festival and the Farnsworth Museum, where much of the Wyeth family's paintings are kept. I think it's a pretty cool place. Owl's head is pretty sparsely populated.
We had the house pretty thoroughly inspected. Some things were fixed up by the previous owners. It is indeed on a septic system.
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
From the Wired articlue: "But its stock has taken a breathtaking fall, dropping from $151 to around $6 in less than a year."
Seriously, just look at this graph! If the stock prices, along with the firing of employees are any sign, then this is not merely due to "created by acquisitions, and said the move has nothing to do with any troubles at Red Hat."
--
RumorsDaily
I have tried something like five linux distribs lately, and the first distrib I tried (oh that makes six) was RedHat. Why? Cuz I was a Linux-illiterate and I took the first distrib I found. A friend of mine bought it in a store.
But then I realized there was better, and that RH is the most used distrib just because it's the most popular. But let us analyze what that lead to:
1) Stocks!
=> Somebody is earning money on programmers that do stuff for free. Isn't that exploitation?
2) The will to come up with new versions and high version numbers, becaure "big" numbers are soooo cool! Hey, I know that trend... (See IE-NS number war, aka where is NS 5). The need for new version leads to new features/bugs. When first RH 7 was out well, security was relative. Dunno how it is now.
3) RH is popular => a lot of people use it => they adapt to it => they won't try anything else => Linux is directy associated with RH => RH casts a shadow on other distribs. This is bad. Hey reminds me of another OS everybody uses...
Now a PRO (I feel guilty cuz I sid bad thing about a Linux distrib):
It's easy to install and configure. And KDE is sooo user-friendly.
I always thought that a comedy OS was something like WinCE, or MacOS.
"The original idea of making money from a free operating
system was dubious from the start," said a former Red Hat
executive who asked not to be identified. "To make it work,
if it could work at all, would have required highly skilled
management.
My experience working for a Fortune 500 company shows
otherwise. Management for the most part gets in the way,
wastes money left and right in political battles, and tries to
make technical decisions for the rest of us. I reckon the best
thing upper managment could for the company is get rid of
the crufty middle management goons.
Is this just an example of a large company stripping some fat/getting rid of the deadwood, or is this an indicator that RH is in serious trouble?
--
www.scorbett.ca
Before we all start saying that the open source business model doesnt work, simply because redhat is laying off people, there is a company that does make money at this. Its called Suse. The open source model for a software business can work, now whether redhat can make it work or not remains to be seen. I think redhat's problems have more to do with overextending itself with acquisitions, and the fact that there are so many other linux distros that are better. I dont want this to be distro flame war, so if redhat works for you, great, I'm happy for. I just prefer debian or mandrake.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
Despite their minor woes, 3 offices in the bay area is rather much. With Oakland and Sunnyvale they pretty much cover the ends of the bay. SF must have been a money pit.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Good. More people to "work" on Debian :) (Even if temporaly).