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VA Linux Announces Planned 25% Staff Cut
prac_regex was the first to write with news of planned cuts announced today for VA Linux. "The title doesn't say it all, but it says a lot.
Yahoo reports the cost cutting VA implemented today." VA reported higher-than expected per-share losses, and announced some big organizational changes as well. Guess "playing in the big leagues" means taking the occasional bean-ball. (Note: OSDN, of which Slashdot is a part, is itself part of VA, in case you hadn't heard;))
well now that I know there's a commandline streamripper (are you responsible for the win32 gui prog of the same name?) I'll be helping live365 go broke quicker :)
--
enterfornone - logging in for a change
And they couldn't even sell that. The company I work for (in Menlo Park, CA) wanted to contract with VA for some performance tweaking of a few large MySQL database servers running Linux. While the cost was about average for consulting rates, there was a four week lag time until the consultant could visit.
We didn't have the time. We figured it out ourselves.
But who were they selling to? The geek market is more likely to be making their own computers and installing their own distros. The large corporate market is likely to have their own staff that can deal with installing and configuring Linux.
This is somewhat true. We use Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD in our production environment. However, we buy systems from ASL Labs. The VA boxes were just too damn expensive, and the ASL machines were of higher quality hardware.
My perception of VA is that they are too concerned with Community "Look Good", and not concerned enough with running a profitable business. On one hand, they've done a great service to the Linux community. On the other, they are starting to fall apart because of it.
I think that you have a slanted view of unions. Unions do help workers. How many of your co-workers pull the weight you think they should? I come from a coal mining family, a union job is much better than that from a truck mine.
Sure, unions have downsides just like any work enviroment. But, with a union you have some concrete asurance that you can control your work enviroment. (Who can say that tech workers won't be as numerous as mine workers in the future?)
Support unions, soon the person three blocks over will do the same thing as you; cheaper! Largely, I support unions. The Heads of unions do underhanded things, which is why a union head should be an plain worker. But, damnit workers need corperate representantion.
Sorry, for the rant. My father is a coal miner and I know that for a common worker you can be replaced, with common labor, without reason . In 20 years IT workers will have much the same job. That of a common worker.
"Drug related crime" is a misnomer, "prohibition related crime" is the more accurate and correct phrase.
I don't get what you don't get. They are LOSING money hand over fist. Now maybe they only lost a wee bit more than they anticipate, but companies simply cannot keep on losing money. In other words, the accuracy of these _public_ predictionals are not necessarily terribly relevant, there are other more important factors that you're ignoring. Such as, they also predicted that they're not going to be profitable till October 2002, 9 months later than what they first declared. This means that they may very well run out of cash before that point. The situation might well demand that they cut staff to even survive. What's more, they're predicting that their revenues may actually fall.
Without going into the long form (which would require me to review the thinking that went into such decisions and that would, alas, make my brain hurt), this is precisely why my finance prof said that nobody sane loaned tech companies money.
This doesn't, of course, mean that loans don't happen. In part, loans can happen as an interim measure where equity financing is expected (i.e., as in your company, the liability is going to transform from debt to equity).
There are certain businesses where it makes more sense to have a debt load than an equity load and certain businesses where it's the other way.
It is generally a better option, at least in tech, to finance capital through equity rather than through debt. This is why the venture capitalists have been getting rich off the tech boom and the banks haven't.
_Deirdre
In Raymond's case, his Libertarian dogma led him to pronounce that open source would make tremendous amounts of money and be a fabulous success, although as far as anyone can tell, Raymond has never been involved with creating an actual business plan, successful or otherwise. There was no business model behind his pronouncement, only the zeal of the religious devotee. Because the open source movement's value claims were snake oil, we are now left looking at the fading remnants of the Linux bubble.
In the message you quoted, Raymond states,
This is a question that a lot of us will be facing as open source sweeps the technology landscape. Money follows where value leads, and the mainstream business and finance world is seeing increasing value in our tribe of scruffy hackers.
If that's not embarassing now, I don't know what is. Open source has turned out to be marginal and only rarely even slightly profitable. The revolution will not be televised, because there is no revolution.
Tim
Not once has a popular website been bought out by a big corporation without losing its soul, and not once has a corporation managed such a site successfully without losing its shirt.
Slashdot? We just haven't seen the end of the road, yet. But it's coming.
It's the classic problem of vertical consolidation in the industry: VaLinux makes the hardware that people run when reading VaLinux's web content (via Andover). They control each stage of the production, and they ought to be able to do so financially successfully, right?
Wrong.
The disparate parts of VaLinux's farflung online empire were never well-suited to furthering VaLinux's corporate goals. VaLinux was and probably always will be a company that builds expensive linux machines for elite linux users (unlike Dell and other companies targetting the low-end linux crowd). Slashdot, Freshmeat, and now Kuro5hin were never aimed at this same audience.
The average Slashdot reader can't be bothered to load OSDN's ads. What made VaLinux think they could convince those same users to buy VaLinux-branded hardware?
Either the Andover division is going down in flames with VaLinux, or it will be jettisoned.
I only wish I could see the smirk melting from ESR's face. What's his portfolio worth now?
Read the rest of this comment...
I'm sorry guys...I've been getting Open Magazine for free even though I'm not in a position to actually buy any of the advertiser's products.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
[1] A parody of several things, including a former sign that had the VA logo and "Got love?"
Dude, Can you clue me in on how you can embed knives into your signature. I've never seen one of these clever signatures, but it sounds like just about the coolest thing that could possibly be done with html.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Here. In terms of code, this is how a start up runs:
if (Money Out > Money In && Stupid_Venture_Capitalists == 0)
decrease_money_out();
else
buy_superbowl_ads();
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
I can see both sides of this one. And I agree that American unionism, as currently practiced, is quite incompatible with the 'geek cowboy' culture that keeps the computers running. But what if a union was more like a guild? Among other things, it could promise employers that when you hire an (apprentice|journeyman|master) you get a certain level of knowledge. This is similar to the idea of 'certification', except I don't think certification should be controlled by a company like Red Hat, but rather by a body of professionals.
Ah, that's the concept I'm groping for. I don't want sysadmins etc. to become blue-collar union members, but I'd like us to become professionals, and currently we're not. And given the nature of our work and personalities, we don't need some age-encrusted authority 'certifying' us for knowing Cobol/CICS. We need a new organizational structure, properly adapted to the internet age.
Why aren't we professionals now? Well, professionals are people who took an oath in order to assume their current status. Medical doctors take the hippocratic oath, and it's at least controversial when a doctor administers a lethal injection. When a sysadmin is asked by management to violate a user's privacy, he can't say "I took an oath not to do that. I'd be expelled from the worldwide league of sysadmins." But I kind of wish he could.
OK just 25% of John Katz will do it too.
Jon Katz I hope... please oh please oh please....
On a serious note....
.com pool of ca$h that have been sustaining a lot of companies for a while now.
/. still exists? Maybe this is a better question for Ask Slashdot, but I figure I'd post it here. If VA is laying off 25%, then the demise of the .coms is coming closer to home, and I'm wondering how this will affect /. and it's users.
/. on the side like in the old days? Will /. be immune to the .com deaths? I would have thought so, simply because of it's popularity, but if VA is cutting back, the the possibility exists. I wonder if the /. owners have thought that far ahead :)
Slashdot is owned by anover^Wva^Wwhoever, and it's owners (*wave* to taco and hemos) are paid from the
So what happens when that money runs out? Will
Will you guys (taco, hemos, cowboyneil, etc) continue on and try to scrape by with what you can get from t-shirts and banner ads, or will you go back to having a "real job" and doing
One of the dangers of working for a publiclly traded company I'd say. When in doubt start your own company. It may be more work and more risks but you never get fired. Of course this only works if you can sell yourself and your product well. :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Read it here: http://www.fuckedcompany.com/extras/valinuxemail.c fm
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Right. This is why Sun should just acquire VA and spin off all the cruft. Goes nicely with their cobalt acquisition, and it would harness the VA linux expertise as well as slapping a well known brand on it that businesses could "trust" to build a system.
So, what's "cruft" under that plan? Most everything cool, is the problem; OSDN would almost certainly go. And the thing is, I don't know if it can survive as a corporate entity without a benevolent behemoth sponsor (personally i think ibm would be better for that than sun). Maybe it should reform as a non-profit and charge a minimal hosting fee from the project coordinators? That would get rid of the script kiddies real quick!
My ass. I've seen unions in action in the auto industry. There's a reason you really don't want a Pontiac built on a Friday afternoon, and that reason is the union.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Who should be pink-slipped? ( ) CmdrTaco ( ) Hemos ( ) Timothy ( ) CowboyNeal
Certainly this poll (as with most polls) is flawed. Only one choice? Axe the lot of them. Put in their place a hunk of code which takes stories off of The Onion instead. At least when you're reading those you KNOW they're bullshit.
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Fish! LipHo
So far the best place is on S. Bascom near the Pruneyard; I forget the name.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
First, I really put very little thought into writing proper English on slashdot. I don't proof read for it here. The only thing I care about is whether or not I'm conveying my message clearly. When the grammar is so poor as to make that difficult, then I care.
Second, you, and the vast majority of other users, know exactly what I meant.
Third, irregardless is a word, albeit a colloqial and not entirely accepted word. Please refer to Merriam-Webster's dictionary if you do not believe me. That is, incidentally, a little more than just "any" online dictionary, even if it is not quite OED. If you're reading slashdot, you're clearly more than willing and capable of reading broken english, never mind broken thought processes.
Fourth, I am more than capable of writing proper english when I so desire.
Fifth, if you're going to be a grammar nazi, please do yourself a favor and learn to spell grammar properly. Otherwise, the egg ends up on your face, not on your victim's face. Your comment is riddled with other flaws too. For instance, "meant" is the past participle and past tense of "mean", it simply does not fit in that sentence of yours.
QED
Good thing: There's a haystack right below me!
Bad thing; It's got a pitchfork in it!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
No, tim, these are not the big leagues. I would call, oh, IBM announcing a writeoff of a failed venture a beanball. Rambus was/is a beanball for Intel. MS Bob was a beanball for Microsoft. These would be isolated incidents for otherwise successful (profitable) companies. I'd say VA Linux has had nothing but beanballs even since that record-breaking IPO.
Look at this story for the definition of spin, folks. Did VA Linux double their revenues last quarter? Absolutely. But at what cost? Their losses increased at almost exactly the same rate as their revenue -- within 5-10%. Sweet deal, huh? Thank god I don't own their stock.
I'm sorry. I know how bitter I've come off sounding. I just get annoyed when someone with an obvious vested interest in the company tries to put a happy face on things when he also has a committment to journalistic integrity. Can't be fair? Don't post it, or go into PR. (This all springs from a couple failed start-ups following a career in journalism. Figures, huh?)
t.a.f.
obviously, I make the assumption that slashdot has an obligation to journalistic ethics. if you choose to argue with me, and I hope you will, please don't bother with that particular point, since I firmly believe that rob & co. qualify as journalists (and consider themselves as such when it suits them).
Hi, I'm a pretentious cock who will make some gay comment about ignoring AC posts here.
None of these internet companys are making any money... thousands of examples... but they'll give me a job!
First, the traditional work environment does allow for lay offs. Layoffs are expected whenever the numbers are not working out, especially when their are negative cash flows. In fact, most shareholders would consider management remiss in their duty if they did not.
Second, VA Linux is not profitable and they have negative cash flows. Put bluntly, the shareholders money is paying for virtually all of the employees salaries. Irregardless of how much cash or assets they currently have on hand, they are finite. They depend on the shareholder, if they neglect them they will die.
Third, unions cannot stop this from happening. These kinds of cuts are not about mere profitability, it's about survival.
Fourth, the IT industry needs unions like it needs a bullet in the head. Unions have been shown to slow companies down, reduce customer service, innovation, etc. time and time again. Although there are a few rare exceptions, these are mostly with neutered unions, in very friendly environments.
When VA first went "underwater", I posted a
"Ask Slashdot" when we were going to get the "Meditations on Sudden Poverty" essay.
Too bad they never print any *interesting* Ask Slashdots...
expect
    failure();
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
While it's not appropriate for me to comment on too many things, I wanted to address concerns about SourceForge.net and SourceForge onsite (SFOS). So basically, during the , uh, shuffle, VA has had to decide where people will be cut and which areas of thebusiness will be concentrated on.
One of those areas is SourceForge and it's sister group, SFOS. SF and SFOS is super important to the future of VA from a bunch of angles. Dan Bressler, the product manager will be posting a reply to this note giving a brain dump on what's going on within. In short, SF has headcount and budget and we are looking to add staff on both teams. So that's the short post. Dan will post a more in depth piece. I wanted to get a place holder in for those who care about SF.
I'll answer other questions if I can, but for many questions, the answer can only legitimately be given by Pat Fossenier, our investor relations person.
Chris DiBona
Linux Community Evangelist, VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
I know! Why not fire Jon Katz?!? He's a lazy no-good piece-of-shit dead weight anyway! Just tell everyone that if they can't right code to pack their shit and shove off!
Right. I'm sure that getting rid of Malda's personal masseuse really hurts the bottom line.
Look, start-ups have a nasty tendancy to hit a point where they're suddenly overstaffed. It takes a lot of people to get things going, but there comes a point when things are up and running. Suddenly, the business finds that it can operate just fine with less staff -- the intranet is set up, the docs are written and just need small changes, the server farm is chugging away just dandy...
It's not fair or pretty, but it's true. Besides, what good will it do anyone if VA Linux doesn't trim their fat? It's just stupid business, especially in a day where computer vendors have to struggle to stay alive (this isn't the market of 2-3 years ago).
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Take a look at this. VA's stock price seems to very closly follow that of Redhat's.
/me manually puts bullet in head.
Vertical consolidation is a great move for any company looking to increase their profitability, but in VA's case it wasn't even really vertical consolidation, it was, well, "diagonal" consolidation if anything.
It seemed at though they were attempting to go for prestige and "kudos" rather than a sound business model. They had absolutely no need to buy Andover - the two companies were in totally different businesses where the only tenuous link was Linux.
The trouble is is that VA is a hardware company at the end of the day. And their selling point was their Linux expertise. But who were they selling to? The geek market is more likely to be making their own computers and installing their own distros. The large corporate market is likely to have their own staff that can deal with installing and configuring Linux.
This left the dotcom companies as their target market. And given the fickle nature of the dotcom "revolution" this was always going to be risky. The growth period in internet companies is over, and VA are left with a smaller new market, and hence less potential revenue.
Don't blame consolidation, blame a risky business plan. The reason we're seeing so many cuts is that they're attempting to cutback now and avoid even bigger cuts later. It wouldn't suprise me if they did try and sell of OSDN and move back to their core business.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
- of three articles a day on Napster and P2P
- of the latest stupid way to cram linux into something better suited to be a toaster oven than a computer
- of three articles a day on why Open Source is the answer to the universe (we know it is already!)
- of the same article posted three times in the same day
- of links to 5 gigabyte video files
- of lists of things that people are tired of
- of goatsex
- of the lack of editorial review and a spell checker
- of people saying Athalon instead of Athlon and saying 'then' when they mean the comparitive 'than'
- of ten stories a day on some new stupid patent and why the government is collapsing next week because of stupid patents (we know already!)
- of clever signatures.
I'd like to see more ofSomeone you trust is one of us.
Wouldn't it have anything to do with that ?
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
We don't need
-Jon Katz
-Anonymous Cowards
-Trolls
Err, wait. That's about 80% of slashdot...
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Check out my blackbox styles
The good news: I sold my 100 shares of VA Linux the second day it was traded
The bad news: I held on to the other 40
Who should be pink-slipped? ( ) CmdrTaco ( ) Hemos ( ) Timothy ( ) CowboyNeal
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
I like that list, except for possibly:
Discussions on why Jarjar sucked
Definitely beating a deal horse there... But, there's more modification to the current content:
And on the positive side:
Heck, maybe it's even time to look over at Kuro5hin.org and see how things are done there to produce better conversations. No, not the article voting system - I'm talking about the articles themselves, the tone they are written in, and how the content is normally designed to create meaningfull discussion. (Of course, the fact the community it's self acts as a filter helps.) They don't get paid to write the stuff, and the quality is a great deal higher at times, and definitely contributes to meaningful discussion.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Sourceforge itself isn't in a very good state right now, the statistics are broken, cvs breaks often, shell breaks often, the compile farm just went back online, the list goes on.
I have a feeling its turned into the place where script kiddies can get a shell account to play around with, all they have to do is make up a project name, and set it's state to pre-alpha, or planning (as are a huge portion of the sourceforge projects)
We all wanted to stock market to sober up, but i don't think we relized how and where we would feel it. Sourceforge IMIO (i=ignorant) was a reaction to the OpenSource(tm) hype of 99/00, it has absolutly no way of making money, and must cost a decent amount to run.
Another site that might not make it till the end of the year is live365.com, they bassicly give anyone T3 bandwidth to anyone who wants to stream there mp3s. right now they seem to be scabbleing to make money, i don't think it's going to work out.
-Jon
Streamripper
this is my sig.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
The economy is hurting everybody. I've been through 3 rounds of layoffs and the Linux company I work for. It is tough on the soul, even if you make the cut.
Republicans are Nazis. LetsRiot!
does anyone remember this ESR post? How he pompously declared that, now that VA Linux had gone IPO at a huge value he was absurdly rich. At least about 30 million dollars. While that isn't absurd in the traditional sense, it's a ludicrous amount of money for such a pompous, talent less, wanker. ESR isn't a 'hacker' he's a hack. Of course, based on his inane randite ideology the more money you had the more 'valuable' of a person you are. Look here:
Besides, it wouldn't be fair to dissemble. I serve a community. I'm wealthy today because my efforts to spread the idea of open source on behalf of that community helped galvanize the business world, and earned the respect and the trust of a lot of hackers. Larry thought that respect was an asset worth shelling out 150,000 shares of VA for.
Right, and now that 150,000 shares is worth just a tiny bit over a million, and hopefully going less. Assuming he didn't flip the stocks at the fist opportunity. Which I guess was June. But oh well. The sooner that idiot leaves the public eye, the better.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
So, as a responsible and long-time member of the Slashdot community, I feel it is my duty to open nominations for which of the Slashdotters should be going -- voted off the island, if you would. I figure they owe VA one sacrifice after they issue a pink slip to the obvious choice (coughKatzcough).
I would like to place my vote for jamie, because he's got the same name as my ex-girlfriend (who dumped me rather painfully, I might add). That'll teach ya.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I didn't say to copy the content. In no way do I contend that needs to be done. I don't COMPLETELY agree with your opinon of what ends up on Kuro5hin, but, it does end up redundant bitching at times.
What I meant was, the stories that DO go up there normally are designed to inspire intelligent discussion, and often do! /. could use a lot more of stories designed do the same thing. Looking at how those stories create discussion, and the tone of how they are written could give good insight into what could change to produce more positive results on /. I don't want /. to be Kuro5hin, and I don't want Kuro5hin to be /. If I did, I'd be reading one or the other, and not bothering to express my opinion on the other one ;-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
So VA Linux doubled its revenue, but it missed its loss projects by $.02/share. This necessitates a 25% cut. Can someone explain why? I've never understood the workings of finance-droids.
Cool - nice to see you on here trying to put those who wonder in the know! But, this comment presents a problem:
Anyway, hope this clears up any concern.
Man, you must be kidding. Does that clear up the idea that SourceForge is going to loose a lot of people in the short term (IE, next 3-6 months)? Yep. Does that clear up the idea that in the longer term (1 - 2 years) SourceForge is going to have serious problem? Nope. I like the idea of SourceForge and all, but, it's still hard to see where all of this outlay is really getting VA it's money back. Sure, some of the projects get a fairly direct return back to VA when even nearly completed. But, take a look at the contents of SourceForge - very little of it really seems to apply. I mean, take a look at all those projects listed - a good number are half-ass thought out projects that are going to fail within the first two months because the creator of the project can't find people to help out or just plain old can develop the idea they came up with. Heck if I get another offer to join so-and-so's VB game project, complete with a link to a SourceForge project, I'm going to SHOOT SOMEONE! (Especially when I look, and there's not even a 'design' behind the game yet. *SIGH*)
It's hard to see where that much, well... random crap that SourceForge is having to support in terms of bandwidth, storage, and support requests really do much to contribute to VA's business. I'd probably have more faith in it if there was an approval process or something - IE, users submit a written request for the privilage of hosting a project on SourceForge. Something that makes them stop and think about what they are doing, instead of letting SourceForge become the GeoCities of Open Source projects. For every good project like CrystalSpace3D, there's now 3 projects in the 'pre-alpha' stage with no chance of getting any farther.
Anyway - I don't mean to sound like a troll or flamer who's saying it can't ever work, etc. Just pointing out what I've been seeing and have been heavily concerned about on SourceForge. On the flipside of those concerns, I think it's great that SourceForge exists, and provides access to a collaborative environment for Open Source developers with a minimum of hastle!
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
I have to say, dude, that I would not like to be a "Community Evangelist" during a 25% downsizing. You might want to change it to "Marketing Manager", which is effectively what you are, and which doesn't look so glaringly like a waste of money when the bankers take a look at the outgoings a/c.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
...so that VA can sell more systems.
The problem is, anyone can sell those systems, including Dell and Micron. Red-hat really seems to have a better bussness model after all.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
had to say it. ;)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One of the problems with the IT industry is the absence of unions to protect the workers. This allows management to get away with abuses that would be impossible in traditional work environments.
I have it on good authority that VA is implementing it's 25% reduction is staff size by amputating all employee's legs at the kneecap. Clearly this is an abuse of the employer/employee relationship and we must do something about it.
The IT industry needs unions to prevent further incidents such as this. In the words of Joe Hill, "Don't weep for me boys, organize."
--Perdida