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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.
Software giant weathers well, Intel slips 15%.
Guess I know where to invest my money *grins*
Actually, looks more appropriate to upgrade my firewall. One linux product that tends to work well out of the box... tho I wish it was more secure by default. I don't think I've had any trouble installing it and running... unlike BeOS which failed 8 out of 10 times.
Given the statement in this press release, things aren't looking good for next year, either:
The company reported an adjusted net income of $600,000, or break even per share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2002, compared to an adjusted net loss of $3.7 million, or $0.02 per share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2001.
Employing those psychic accountants must be very lucrative!
-Waldo
Look at VA's stock. All time low. Last time I checked at $0.92
:-(
Things are looking bleak for Linux companies
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
They are giving a good name to Linux in a few ways. If we didnt have them, linux would still be here (even for the better some might say) but I am sure that it would take people some time to adjust. They need something to hold onto in their head as a sign of quality. Colors and shapes comprise good names, just like a logo that can be drawn in the sand is constant reminder of how it (a company name) sticks with us. Redhat might not be the best (or perhaps you think they are) but they are doing something with Gnu/Linux that might have taken years to do. Thank them for that.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
This isn't surprising. Lemmie add Intel, AMD, and Transmeta into the mix. Looks like all tech stocks are hitting low. Not to mention that stocks dropped drastically after last tuesday.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
And whatever happened to Redhat's 'discount' package, that comes with only the bare bones Redhat6 disc and an installation guide?
... if they could convince AMD not to call their future CPUs for AthlonXP rather AthlonRedHat.
Look a monkey!
I just don't know why in last quarter's report Red Hat loss $400,000 (as I recalled) and says break even because the loss is less than 1c. Now they say loss $100,000 and then loss 2c per share. How's the math?
Then, FYI, this $100,000 loss doesn't include one-time charges and/or costs which would total the loss to $55.3 million. Is there any "accounting tricks" applied to spiff up the reports or what?
Your answer is appreciated. Thanks.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Before getting carried away:
Red Hat's second-quarter net loss was $55.3 million, on revenues of $21 million.
Granted, they've got PR speak down, and slashdot falls over itself reporting these "breakevens". But they've systematically excluded items in almost every quarter they have reported results, and the number slashdot reports are pretty bogus. Most other sites AT LEAST report generally accepted number (GAAP) along with the PR numbers which exclude all losses.
So let's hope they do well, but please for the love of god lets stick to numbers that are not simply pulled from a hat. And despite what folks like to say about how this gives insight into their business, these numbers are by and large bogus.
From article:
...Szulik is right in his statement...
From Everything2:
Nothing Found
Sorry, but nothing matching "Szulik" was found.
If you Log in you could create a "Szulik" node.
Doh!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
This cycle, combined with the current economic downturn means a lot of technology providers are not spending large budgets, and new servers are not popping up. When the buy cycle returns, and IT managers look to purchase the systems that will give them the best bang for the buck, Red Hat will obviously be near the top of those systems.
XP's release will also probably send many systems managers looking into solutions, and may also send RedHat sales upward. If the IT manager gets a new budget earmarked for XP, but decides to spend it more wisely, RedHat sales might see a boost. Then again, it may also take a dent out of RedHat's sales, we'll have to wait and see.
I think this is pretty good news (considering the state of the economy) for RedHat.
This is a company that mainly lives on others work. If it isn't going that great for them, how are things going for those companies who actually has to make products themselfs and live on them?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After that date, all bets are off, however... How might the aftermath harm/help Linux/Open Source? Seeing this story, I expect Microsoft's IIS is now a very serious liability. Also, MS plans to continue on schedule with XP rollout in NYC...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
While Red Hat says they almost made a profit, its only by excluding other, huge expenses. 37.2 million was excluded, the net loss is 55.3 million. The number to look at is that their earnings went down 15%. This is bad news for Red Hat. Someone in another post said that the price of Red Hat has gone too high. I disagree, you buy one and make copies.
this is not a sig
Let those numbers sink in. That means that RedHat's revenue was less than half of their loss in the second quarter. And this bodes well for RedHat because...?
Between this and the fact that RedHat's stock is at an all-time-low (just look at the charts over on Nasdaq) we have some SERIOUS troubles for Linux. I wonder if Linus has heard about this problem yet?
Red Hat would make a much bigger profit if they implemented a licensing scheme similiar to MS-Linux (http://www.mslinux.org).
Yeah, they're doing such a good job that the Young and Buckley are offloading shares as fast as they can.
Classic reductio ad absurdem here. Let's walk through it. We'll assume Linux is better and free. Therefore, due to the laws of economics, Linux should all but have obliterated all the competition at this point. However, this has not even come close to happening. Either Linux is not better, or it is not free. Linux is free, therefore it is not better. Care to reject that?
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.
Ok, I paid for a full version of Win98, and use it about once every 2 weeks (when I need to transfer pictures from my digi-cam) It cost $75.
I use RedHat (my distro of choice) 20 times as much as Windows. Let's say it's worth $300 to me, and I want to donate $100 to those who have worked on the software.
Who do I give the $100 to? FSF? RedHat? Do I just go and purchase $100 of Redhat distros at Sam's Club?
There might be a good answer to this question, but it's not in my O'Reilly book, and I've never bothered to look into it. So, my $100 is still in my pocket, when it could be doing some good helping someone who's a better programmer than I.
Why isn't there more press on donation procedures? I know some people would get upset at RedHat ads (for donations) and such, but why not? Especially when they're facing tough times (like now) a couple of "Have Pity" ads on slashdot would do a lot of good.
There are a lot of people with corn cobs up there butts who won't donate, and would yell bloody murder about requesting donations for software that should be free, but such idiots would just wrong. They aren't being forced to donate. And that would be that.
Free unix account: freeshell.org
I would really love it, and for a long time it has looked as if it is possible, by offering support, training and other stuff that is really valuable to "sell",and still keeping with the open source idea.
:) And slowly people starts to realize that you don't make money just because you are online. About time. You missed breakfast...
:)
But. I can't help but think that it is likely to be the same kind of trick we play on our own minds as it was with online advertising, e-business in general and the whole dot-com thingummy.
Online advertising - I still say that could have worked to some extent if it wasn't so overhyped at the start, and if the stupid mofos would have stuck to banners that don't annoy anyone.
E-business... well, the ones that succeed is 99% businesses that are well established offline first... with some remarkable exceptions of course.
Dot-com. Well. Um. No comment. Everybody believed in it. Whatever it was. Noone knew...
Well, anyways - is commercial Open source a "hoax" too? Some parts will most definetely survive, I think. Companies that do open source because they need, or at least can use, the product themselves, for instance. That is beautiful.
But taking a product and providing services and knowledge about it for money? Hmm... actually, that isn't so stupid. If cars were free, we'd still have mechanics for the non-technical dudes. I guess that the free car of today has too little marketshare, a bit suspect reputation, and has the steering wheel on the wrong side. A bit awkvard for most, in other words.
This could change. I hope it does...
Seriously, all they're doing is playing book-keeping tricks to pull the wool over your eyes. Doesn't it seem fishy how for the last three quarters they come within $100,000 of breaking even each time? Come on. When you actually read the articles and look at the numbers, though, you see that they're losing from $30-$50 million each quarter and writing it off as one-time charge. Someone else will have to explain how they manage to apply these supposed "one-time" charges every single quarter. ;)
In other words, if RedHat were to keep "making money" at the same rate that they have for the last three quarters, they would run out of money not all that long from now.
not exactly a killer vote of confidence.
While I don't agree that Microsoft is going down like Netscape; his point is valid. Most of the new applications being developed are NOT client server but web enabled. Linux will see continued growth in that market. I believe that since most of the new applications will be web enabled, the client becomes less and less of an issue.
Obviously Microsoft knows this and will try very hard to wrap as many proprietary extensions around web development as possible.
Lastly, in lean times people will start looking more and more at free software to get things done. This will also add to the Linux growth.
I just wish that someone would develop a filesystem that doesn't just have "owner", "group" and "other". If you have ever worked with NetWare or NT, this sucks.
OpenSource also needs a competitor to Exchange/Groupwise/Domino-Notes.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
Your rendition of Bill Gates is almost as bad as your rendition of the Windows logo.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
As RedHat might be considered by many people (and especially those not currently using Linux) as the flagship of the distributions this is really bad news.
I am afraid that news like this makes it harder for businesses to adopt Linux. It makes a huge difference to know that your operating system vendor is still in business after 1,2,5 and 10 years.
So, I just sincerely hope Redhat, SuSE and the others get their business going well and start making nice profits.
-- jukal at cyberian.org
There is no logic that marketing can't turn upside-down. :)
I don't know where you're looking, the most I've seen the regular version is $39.95. Maybe you are seeing the Deluxe version that is like $79.95, and the 'Professional Server' version is $139.95...
So, I think you're looking in the wrong places...
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
You can also get an iso containing a modified Redhat 7.1 installer that will create XFS partitions.
I believe there are a couple of kernel patches that add support for ACLs.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
Odd that Slashdot, a VA-owned website, will report on Red Hat's losses, but somehow neglect to inform their readers that VA Linux Systems stock has finally slipped into penny-stock territory as of yesterday, closing at a whopping $0.95/shr.
But wait..that would mean that VA is fair and impartial when it comes to informing the Linux community..hmm.
Bowie J. Poag
We all know there are TENS, maybe HUNDREDS of people who compile the latest Linux kernel. AMD's totally FUCKED now. There's no chance it will work with future versions, and AMD is so off the beaten path - game over man, game over. If your stuff doesn't run Linux, you're cut off from ONE OR TWO PERCENT of the desktop market, and that is just devastating. They're in a tailspin now. Might as well head over there right now for the office furniture auction....
The problem with OS/2, besides that it sucked compatability wise; Microsoft. M$ wrote most of it for IBM, than the deal went sour and IBM was stuck re-doing it, in typical "BIG BLUE" fashion (throw 1,000 programmers at it and hope...)
M$ had done so many cheap write arounds for the code to work, IBM was stuck scratching their proverbial asses trying to figure it out, while watching Gates go from millionaire to billionaire. Unlike M$, IBM wanted it to work now, not do the M$ "ship it now, fix it later" style of programming.
It is sad to see alot of parallels in the history of OS/2 to the current situation with Linux. M$ had no real competition at the time, so they could get away with it. Linux on the other hand has an entirely different situation, they are David, amd M$ is Goliath.
Good Luck Linux,
--chris
I believe that janet hoolian (secratary at Andover.net) had more shares than rob
You're forgetting quite a few of your assumptions there...
Among them:
1) better products naturally dominate the marketplace
2) the timeframe over which products "obliterate" competition is less than the current age of Linux (or more acurately, the length of time Linux has fit the definition of "better" product).
Somehow, I doubt you can support either of these assumptions...
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
im a RH user, hoever if RH tanks im going to Mandrake
Caldera is evil
* Carthago Delenda Est *
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.
Want to understand the situation in the middle east? Read What Should be the Response to Violence? . Most important lesson? Understanding the corruption in the secret agencies of the U.S. government. They have a conflict of interest; they are supposed to help prevent trouble, but they get more money if there is more trouble.
Bush's education improvements were
Microsoft.com infected with That Worm!
http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage
(From the Incidents mailing list)
I have purchased various RH releases three times in the past. Each time I found the same problems.
Lousy bug database. Lousy support. Problems reported keep getting dupped out. Unless you pay the bug db doesn't work very well for you. It works but reallllly slow and doesn't show the hits very well.
Their servers are not usuable to download with , again unless you pay.
I just bought the product but the bad service turned me off. The lack of resolutions to failures I was having didn't help either.
I thought they would do better but they forgot their beginnings in the name of greed.
Windows benefits from a positive feedback loop: they have 95% market share, therefore 95% of the apps get written for it, therefore they keep 95% market share.
Even you could understand this.
Being delisted means that they are not traded on the larger stock exchanges anymore. It's a huge knock on the company's prestige but it's not at all like chapter 11. They company will still be in business and it will be traded on the "pink sheets". There are markets filled with companies like VA Linux on those exchanges.
There are a number of things that must happen to get delisted. Some of them include trading below $5 for an extended length of time, having a market cap under $50 million, etc. (I don't pretend to have them memorized. I'm just fimiliar with them because I worked for a failing company.)
Anyway, even with all the methods of staying listed it seems to me that VA Linux is in danger, just like you pointed out.
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
Well, as long as Red Hat is surrounded with that kind of friendly salespersons you seem to be, even software which is open and doesn't cost a penny can't make a buck.
Time will tell who is deluged here by what.
Plonk
Compared to the other server-grade OS (win2k) this is more than reasonable - 2k server runs $800 off the shelf, I think. (never bought it that way) You have additional licensing fees on top of that. And you get some pretty good support from RH if you pay.
You can get the distro images for free from their ftp site if you have the bandwith. So the price isn't that bad.
Well, last quarter when they earned $600,000, they released Red Hat 7.1, which may have helped their sales numbers. There was no distro release this quarter.
However, 7.2 should come out shortly, and it will almost certainly drive their numbers up again.
Not that distros is all they sell, but it does help and could easily be the difference between quarters.
Note to Redhat: You got the branding downpat, now work on product and service issues.
Again, the Redhat distribution is excellent (my personal fave) but it's far from perfect. When I punk down $70 CDN for software, I have high expectations.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I wish my company had a tiny loss so I didn't have to pay taxes...
Normally a story like that would have made at least passing mention to the layoffs RH is taking, if for no other reason than to make the institutional investors happy (because they'd see them as "belt tightening" or some such). But this one makes no mention of them. The closest it comes is saying they "restructured [their] operations".
Could it be that the reporter doesn't really know that much about the company? Or possibly they don't want to draw any parallels with the others in the dot bomb crowd for fear of tainting RH's staggering $3.11 share price? Or maybe then someone would ask which areas did they cut (to make sure it was fat and not mussle that was being trimed) and then they'd have to explain that some of it was part of the very group that they had just mentioned was responsible for "[a] significant portion of that revenue"?
I hope they pull out and start making money again...
But in the meantime, where the hell is 7.2? The Roswell beta has been out for so long, kde 2.2.1 actually has rpms built for it. I'm guessing Ximian will probably follow suite too if they haven't plans already.
Linux is great.
Spending seven hours trying again and again to get RPM 4.0 to compile (for example) is not.
Sometimes it would be nice to just be able to type "install" and have it work, right now, instead of spending hours rewriting makefiles and searching for obscure 9K libraries that are NEVER included with programs that are useless without them.
Just a thought.
I asked this in another thread several days ago.
Someone pointed out that NASDAQ has relaxed these rules quite a bit, because otherwise they would have no stocks to trade at all.
I doubt you can support your assumptions by defining the word "better."
I will look favourably upon handhelds laptops etc that are branded Redhat. BTW I will be buying some RedHat stock and buying (not d'ling) a copy of whichever RedHat 8.* "boxed set" that comes with:
... heheh)
:-P
;-)
* kernel 2.4.12
* solid ext3/XFS/reiserfs fs support
* XFree 4.2 (looking forward to better DPS/Xdgs capability
* Apache 2.0
* Gnome 2.0
* KDE 3.0
* glibc 2.4 (improved C/ObjC/C++ dll.so loading speed with maybe "wired" memory locations so apps load faster and do less "mapping" of memory)
* gcc 3.1 (able to compile kernel *and* userland please and ditto load)
* Out of the box USB and Firewire support easy enough to use for a *dog*!! Yes a DOG!
Just another datapoint for your marketing dept
thank you for your attention
Marketing in this case just means communicating with prospective users. It's sad, but open source projects are often not used because other people have no easy way of understanding them.
Sure, I could go through the source code. But that takes time, and, obviously, I can do that only with a few projects.
The term "marketing" gets a bad name because there is so much dishonest marketing. Honest communicating with prospective users is needed in any project, however.
Bush's education improvements were
Like many Linux users, I tried out a few distros before finding one that fit best for me, and felt most comfortable.
One of the attractions of working outside a software monopoly is that different developer communities and distro companies address separate groups of users with broadly differing priorities.
Are you a desktop user looking for ease of installation? Check out Mandrake if you haven't already. Are ya deeply into kernel research and looking for explicit control over every aspect of your platform? Sounds like you would find Slackware right up your alley. For someone like me with a lot of crossplatform experience, and a lot of diskspace, and server and developmental ambitions as well as desktop requirements, Suse is an excellent fit.
The only operating system I would unhesitatingly not recommend to anyone is Windoze, because it's no damn good, and it's developers are marketing it by methods that are not only ethically repugnant but unlawful.
I would recommend Redhat, at the top of the list, in fact, to a corporation with a number of users in a LAN environment where an estasblished support contract with the distro company is a major operational consideration, as well as an important marketing point. I wouldn't be surprised that one of the reasons they're in reasonably good shape is that Redhat have positioned themselves to be a very attractive choice to users who fit that role.
Due to reasons nothing to do with Linux, it's pretty excruciating to attempt to get excited about serious work of any description at the moment, but, OTOH, while I'm composing this comment, there are thousands of companies running M$ products who are having their day to day operations ripped apart by Nimda. A move to Redhat would be something I would suggest they consider.
give me a