MandrakeSoft Improves Financial Health

joestar writes "MandrakeSoft's latest financial results have been posted to their website. Despite a slight decrease in revenues - mostly due to the dollar/euro rate and negative effects of the Chapter 11-like protection - first results seem impressive: "the company reduced operational expenses by a factor of 5, increased gross margins by a factor of 5 and reduced its losses by a factor of 7". As a result, MandrakeSoft has been cash-flow positive since January 2003, and expects its first positive result for the current quarter! Along with latest Mandrake Linux cool products, these are excellent news in my opinion because it shows that an appropriate business model can help Linux companies greatly."

Comments

Business model?

[cperciva]

it shows that an appropriate business model can help Linux companies greatly

I don't think that MandrakeSoft's business model really scales very well.
1. Tell everyone that you're about to go out of business.
2. Ask for donations.
3. PROFIT!
may have worked so far, but it's self-limiting -- as soon as you start to PROFIT!, it becomes hard to claim that you're about to go out of business.