Red Hat Reports (tiny) Loss, Revenue Slip

Futurepower(tm) was one of the first to write with the news Red Hat reports loss, revenue slips, via Infoworld. Szulik ^? is right in his statement that compared to what's going on in the overall technology segment, RH is doing a good job.

Comments

Redhat slightly recession proof?

[Ian Bicking]

I think (at least to some degree) that Redhat can do better in a recession than many of its (non-OSS) competitors. Some things do better in a recession, because they represent efforts to save money. Car mechanics, for instance.

It might take a while to kick in, but Redhat potentially can do well because OSS software is so much cheaper than much of the commercial software. There may be arguments that it takes more manpower to deploy, and it's not turn-key so it takes longer to bring to market -- many of these arguments might be valid (at least some of the time). But the value of cash vs. the value of time might be shifting -- cash has become more valuable. Leaner endevours would be well served to use OSS.

OTOH, if you really want to save money, why pay money for the support and the box? Linux is pretty much free. Still, even if I don't particularly care for Redhat (the distribution), I wish them well and am optimistic about their fate.

Red Hat is terrible at marketing.

[Futurepower(tm)]

I feel really uncomfortable when people wonder whether open source software can have a profitable business model.

My company makes plenty of money by supporting the computer operations of businesses. My company provides the software at cost, without profit. The cost of the software is small compared to the support costs for training, hardware and software glitches, and specialized programs.

Open source software is more reliable, but support is still needed.

Red Hat, and other companies that provide support for open source software, are unbelieveably terrible at marketing. They just have no clue. That's part of the reason they have trouble making money.

If Microsoft were as bad as Red Hat at marketing, Microsoft would still be trying to sell Microsoft Basic. What's worse, Red Hat is better than most of the others at marketing.

When I look at most open source projects, I can't even understand the home page! Even the home pages are written with the idea that you work on the project, so you already know everything.

If you have a project involving GNU/free software, and need help with communicating to your prospective users, I may be able to help, as a volunteer. Send me email. Even when software is free, there is still a need for marketing communication.


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