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Turbolinux Pulls IPO
jeffersonebell writes "Today Turbolinux becomes the latest software company to pull its IPO.
Story is here. They sight "current market conditions" as the major reason behind the move." I suspect that most people had figured this would be the case - now isn't the ideal time for an IPO.
Is TurboLinux teh same folks with that whacked out ex-felon CEO?
Or is that someone else?
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
I haven't looked at the prospectus, but do they make any money unlike most Linux companies. Does anybody know what differentiates them from Redhat, VA Linux and the others? Are they just another me too Linux company that somehow plans to make money from tech support?
They don't sight. they "cite".
Moderators: I don't give a fuck if you moderate me down. I'd rather be correct.
Again? But that trick NEVER works!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
unfortunately i fear we are going to see many of these kinds of events soon. as the various /. trolls keep pointing out, linux stocks and the computer industry in general are at an economical low. obviously linux itself isnt going to be killed by this but linux companies dying can only be a bad thing.
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
This is a couple days old, as was the new Gameboy story. This was posted yesterday afternoon on CNN (http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/03/20/deals/ipo/), and the gameboy story I believe was at least a day old as well. It'd be nice to see some more timely stories instead of just seeing stuff rehashed here.
BilldaCat
Hell, now isn't a good time to work for a potential Chapter 11 company. The stock options that used to entice people into employment are now meaningless, since the companies have stock values so low (or, like Turbolinux, can't even make an IPO). Everyone's watching FC right now, and the companies can barely keep any bad news held within the walls of their buildings.
This recession isn't just about plunging stock values. It's about the loss of trust between companies and their employees.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I was never really impressed buy turbo Linux anyway. Debian and Mandrake are much better
Company A needs to raise some money, so they decide to sell stock to the public. They set an initial price, say $10/share, and then have their initial offering to the public. In the dot com bonanza days, everyone would by up the stock, and then start trading to those who couldn't get in right away, and the stock climbs from 10 to 100 $/share. However Company A only got $10/share, and its the traders who got rich.
So if this is how it works, why not IPO now, if the company needs the money? Unless they don't think they can sell the shares they need to at their initail price, they'll be raising the capital they need. It sounds like those in charge want to IPO in a bull market so they themselves (and the others who are lucky enough to buy at the inital price) get rich. However, how does this benefit the company?
Anyway, I'm majoring in CS, not business... so what do I know? If I'm totally wrong about this, will someone be kind enough to explain how it really works? cuz to me it looks like the bigwigs are sacrificing the good of the company for their own wallets
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/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Analyst: Due to the fed's refusal to cut the rate down to .002%, no one should invest in the market until they do. The entire country's financial wellbeing depends entirely on the Dow-Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ, so you should listen to everything I say and take it as god given blah blah blah blah blah blah....
Me: Welcome to the real world, Chester, where the stock market is a reflection of the current economy and not its primary driving factor as has been widely seen as the case due to all the dot.com millionaires. You don't think these guys got rich by making and selling a product or service, do you?
It's GOOD that they've decided to pull their IPO and concentrate on building their business through what could end up being a rough economy. This indicates sound thinking and a desire for their business to survive rather than a hot-headed lust for bottom-line profit.
If you're really interested in making money off of a privately-held Linux company, approach them privately and not through a broker. Tell them that you've been watching their company and are impressed by their performance. Tell them that you'd like to become and investor. Sink some money into them and sit back for a while that money is wisely spent, in the case of a company like TurboLinux, who is actually turning a profit.
Down the line, you'll see the long-term benifits over trading public stock.
IANAA (I am not an accountant.)
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
(Issues a buy recommendation, if you are willing not to sell immediately after it goes public, but wait for market recovery.)
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
I'm surprised they could find a venture capatilist who would even consider their IPO, or maybe that's why they're pulling it.
The markets are in a slump. It may end up being a full scale recession, but as of right now it's just a slump. IPO is for stable/growing markets.
Too bad people gave Clinton the credit for Regan and Bush's economy and now that Clinton's economic policies are coming home to roost, the same people want to blame someone who has been in office for less than a hundred days.
Now, maybe people will figure out that Democrat's economic policies are BS and maybe we can get the market back to rising and TurboLinux can IPO with a proper market to do it in.
DanH
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UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
I think it's time we all recognized that running a Linux distro company is an up-hill battle all the way. You have to spend a lot of money to develop your product, yet you have to give away copies on the Net, thanks to the GPL and/or the political realities of dealing with the "Linux community." If you try to make money by selling support or services, you're up against the big companies, like IBM, making it very difficult for you to generate enough revenue to cover the cost of your support staff as well as all your developers, admon costs, etc.
The only way for companies to make money with Linux is by using it to sell other products, like server hardware. And if you're a small company (like VA Linux) competing with IBM, Compaq, HP, and others for hardware sales--lots of luck.
Does the combination of economy sucking and energy crisis worry anyone else?
Especially in the heady days of years gone by, the initial buyers in an IPO were a select few (patrons of the underwriting brokerage, political bigwigs, etc.). You could very much make the argument that a company's principal owners get screwed when the $10 IPO goes to $50 right away - they could have given up less ownership to raise the same amount of capital. That's the job of a responsible underwriter to ensure that doesn't happen.
The only market conditions that have changed are that suddenly, profits actually matter (gasp)! What next, will shareholders actually expect dividends on those profits? When that happens, all hell will really let loose...
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And the Fed doesn't control either of them.
From the washington post
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As one of those non natives I actually welcome
A) being corrected so that my english improves
B) reading and hearing correct english in media.
So when any company wants to start charging for what they're doing, they better think long and hard. Most people are of the mind that anything Linux better be free (it's a major selling point in any company I've worked in). There's enough trouble giving it away, let alone raising market capital for a company wanting to make money with it. Now is definately not the time. And I don't know if there ever will be one.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
I hope that the market bottoms out before all these tech companies with solid products go under; it would be tragic to see the Open Source revolution derailed because of a worldwide economic collapse.
If ya can't beat 'em, clone 'em.
It's not a combination, it's roughly a cause and effect.
As energy prices go up, their burden on the economy increases, and the economy tanks.
Remember the gas crunch of the early 70's, followed by 70's stagflation?
Remember the Iraqi's taking over Kuwait and the mini-recession of 1990-1991?
Of course, all the SUV's on the road are not helping things.
And a President and Vice-President with serious ties to oil and energy companies have far too much of a vested interest in raising oil prices. The companies that are going to do well in this recession are the oil companies.
Finally, wanna guess how much oil is used to generate California electricity? Very little, it's mostly natural gas, some nuclear, some hydro and some wind. California energy consumption is about where it normally is, the utilities are just scamming you all by taking power plants offline.
I'm talking about "trust that you're going to have a job." Period. Companies are always looking for cheaper ways to do things, and cutting down on personnel is a commonly used option.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I mean, seriously, to post about a Linux company's troubles is like to post an article about the sun coming up in the morning. Let's talk about something new.
As far as Safari goes, is it possible that I just missed the article on it? I can't believe that Slashdot wouldn't mention something this big. If you haven't seen it yet, it's O'Reilly's plan (they've already started) to put all their books online and offer different subscription plans to use them (links: "Safari itself, and about the design of Safari). There are so many things to discuss about this approach (which seems pretty innovative), from simply whether or not it will work. I'm definitely interested and almost signed up for it last night. Anybody taken the plunge yet? (The lowest plan is $9.95/month, if you don't feel like checking out the link.)
And whether you like it or not, HailStorm could change everything from the way that we know it. The fact that AOL and Sun were courting government officials for breakfast to talk about new anti-trust action two days before Microsoft even announced this should tell you how seriously they're taking it. There's a ton of different angles that it could be talked about, whether it's positive, negative, or how other organizations could work with it or duplicate it, but I guess Slashdot is waiting for an appropriately negative article about it before they mention it. ;)
Cheers,
As for the rest, California energy consumption has increased dramatically over the last 5-10 years, but due to regulations, power companies have been unable to build more plants. The prices are frozen, so by not producing power, the power companies would have much lower profits. They can only make money when they sell their product.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Out of all my experiences I just don't think OpenSource business should even bother going public. The traders out there today aren't looking to invest in good companies.. They're looking to pump and dump stocks that sound good. Quality is no longer the issue with most investors.
;) )
So why put Linux in the line of fire with for profit companies. Can I tell you the the response I get from my investor buddies when I say "I use Linux" is "Why? The stock is at 5 (or whatever it's at these days" Investors for the most part are idiots and are looking to make a buck. None of them have any loylties to good companies. That's pretty much what put us in the situation we are in today. These pump and dumpers and day traders had their fun with the market. The feds came in and made all these adjustments after just a few months without looking at what might happen in the long term. Now we're stuck with the market in the same place in was before this started and who's been hurt? The US companies and the US economy.
So Good Job TurboLinux. Keep yourself off the market. Investors will just cock tease you as they try and make a buck off your stock before they let it drop into the toliet.
I for one am taking all the money I would have invested and going to Vegas. My odds are better and I want feel like a cheap whore tomorrow morning (although maybe I'll have one in bed with me
you can figure out where
Thanx (yes this is not the official spelling :-)
I don't believe that's the case. The word "media" is plural. It's also one of the most misused words in the language! Come on, don't mod this thread as Offtopic - what's so bad about a discussion around the proper use of English?
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where are you when I want to laugh at turbolnux?
Drilling for oil in Alaska increases the supply of oil.
Increased supply, without increased demand, means lower prices.
Lower prices mean smaller profits for oil companies.
As for California, that's a completely seperate issue which is mainly due to poor energy regulation (consumer prices are regulated, but supply prices are not, so a minor increase in wholesale energy prices drives all the utilites out of business).
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Think -- would _YOU_ be heavily investing in tech stocks at the moment? Only if you're a Foolish investor (which I happen to be...*grin*).
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Unfortunately, companies have started to find ways around unions. Verizon is increasingly hiring contractors to fill in for unionized workers. And this is after the Verizon strike in October.
i'm a verizon contractor, and i'm getting laid off along with all of my coworkers. why? because the employees of another contractor on the same contract went union. they're moving all our jobs to "right-to-work" states.
the new economy can bite my bag, frankly.
--saint----
all that drilling equipment sitting around costs an oil company money, with no chance to recoup their investment, unless it's drilling.
lower prices don't necessarily mean lower profits, they can decrease their profits per barrel as long as they make it up in volume.
Economics goes into great depth at optimal profit price, balancing supply-demand against prices.
I think they just want to keep their oil rigs busy.
cite == the act of making a statement
Hemos == the condition of being someone without a spell and grammer checker
:)
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
They're big banks who broker the IPO. They also esentially write one big check for all the stock and it's up to them to make sure investors buy it all.
So if they can't find enough investors who are interested in X shares at Y price, they take the hit.
Trolls throughout history:
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
At risk of being OT, I think the fed /did/ cut interest rates by .5 percent yesterday. Doesn't change much, though...
10. WeAreGivingAway20DollarBills.com
9. Hey We're A Linux Company Too, Inc.
8. GourmetMustardAndConcreteSupply.com
7. JustRidingTheNasdaq.com
6. VentureCapitalistsAreSuckers.com
5. aWholeBunchOfBannerAdsAndNothingElse.com
4. Virtual Sushi
3. WeHaveNoBiznessPlan.com
2. Refurbished Porno Warehouse
1. CopyOfSlashdot.com
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
'They sight "current market conditions"' shouldn't that be cite??
And don't give me that 'well, you can't expect non-english speakers to be able to write correct english' bull. I will bet anything that the large, huge, vast majority of people making those mistakes are native english speakers, furthermore, most (if not all) of them are from the US. Most other countries' educational systems place a somewhat higher value on the written word and as a result their citizens tend to make more careful word selections.
Shame on you all, the least you can accomplish in your life is to learn proper usage of your native tongue.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
I still have nightmares of the infommercial guy saying "TURBO Linux".
Even Canadian watch News:)
Love your country. Say it once again. Love your COUNTRY...
Their CDs come with all sorts of hardware these days. They are how I know which type of network card or other device to buy in the store.
But who really uses their distribution?
Any word on what its like from any users? deb, rpm or tar.gz based?
I'm far from a market whiz, but wouldn't a bear market be a good time to IPO? There's nowhere to go but up. Look at all the pretty dotcoms who IPOed recently that crashed along with the market. If TurboLinux IPOed now, one would think they would climb as the market recovered (assuming it does).
Obviously there are a lot of smart people who made the decision not to IPO, so there must be a reason that I have no clue about.
The bottom line is that you need to have a differentiating technology in a big enough market. Right now all the VC's are very careful about anyinvestment and nobody wants to take a risk of the uncertainties of tomorrow; but this doesn't mean that everybody is going down. It just means that you can't startup a dotcom named pets-to-go.com and expect to become a billionaire anymore.
I think it's rather assinine to fail to attribute to President Clinton the success of the economics market during his second term in office.
Granted, part of the reason for the boom was the military decline started by the first Bush administration, which pushed companies into R&D on consumer goods instead of government goods. This was a good thing, and I find it disappointing that the new Baby Bush appears to want to go back to the cold war economy that led to foreign countries out competing us in industries we used to be leaders(automobile, television, radio, etc).
But a large reason for the boom was simply the Clinton administration hands-off policy with regards to the economy. Actually this is the prime difference between Clinton and say Reagan. Reagan had a in-your-face style of government, whereas the Clinton government just didn't interrupt peoples daily lives much at all. It gave people time and opportunity to concern themselves with other more important issues.
The only real example of the Clinton administration mucking where they shouldn't have is with the Microsoft lawsuit. There was a recent Forbes article which attributes much of the malaise in the tech market to the Microsoft lawsuit. Essentially pointing out that the tech companies were really just riding on the coattails of Microsoft.
There was another article, I believe in either Salon or Slate, which I read which pointed out another factor of politics and the market. The Baby Bush administration favors the old Republican standby companies... Big Oil, Big Manufacturing, Defense, etc. But not technology, etc.
What that article pointed to is that the market is now shifting with the political winds. Tech is gone, the new administration isn't gonig to promote it. But the other industries stocks are doing quite well.
For instance, go check out the stock charts on Raytheon, an old Bush family defense company. It hit it's 52-week peak in early February, while the tech market was still blundering into oblivion. Even though it's down in the past month, it's still considerably above it's 52-week low from last April.
Face it. The Clinton administration was good for Technology. Look at just a handful of the positive things he did as President for our market:
- Eliminated the GPS satellite encryption
- Raised limits on super computer exports
- Nearly eliminated limits on encryption export
- Provided funding and an atmosphere of regulations which encouraged internet expansion
and so on.
Under the Bush administration you won't see this type of cooperation. They have already began talk about again restricting computer exports. I fully suspect even the encryption export restrctions will once again be "reviewed" and then later reverted back to their old form.
Where's the focus been just in the past 100 days? Oil and Energy companies.
The writing is on the wall, it just takes some intelligence to read it.
I say Amen and again AAAmmmen!
Matt's addition to Occam's Razor:"The most simple answer is preferred by those that are simple."
How were they failed ?
Any examples ?
I use the adsubtract proxy application, so I never see any ads. On yahoo, cnn or slashdot. it's nice. install it and enjoy ;)
You surely ment to be funny, but I resent this.
I mean, just imagine you're sitting at home, watching a nice, educational gameshow on telly and suddenly the cravings kick in.
Now, instead of just calling the Chinese delivery for that evil MSG infested food, you can fire up your WAP browser and after 10-30 minutes just crank out your order for the mixed deluxe Sushi platter; all conveniently charged to your credit card.
Then, two days later UPS is at your doorstep with that package from Omaha, which you open and inhale the smell...
Err! Never mind...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Think about it - without the prospect of receiving a dividend (sharing in the company's profits), what is the financial justification for buying a particular stock??? There is none, other than the hope that someone else will come along and buy it from you at a higher price. And why should they pay a higher price? Because they think that there's an even greater fool out there.
One of the biggest problems with our current tax structure is that your typical stock trader would pay less in capital gains taxes than they would on dividends received, so there's a tax incentive to steer away from dividend-paying companies. That trend takes away one of the fundamental means by which stocks can be evaluated.
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