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OpenIPO and Lindows
An anonymous reader writes "Lindows is using bankers WRHambrecht and their OpenIPO process when they go public. The lower end of the pricing range will net them more than 50MM. But OpenIPO is designed to let ANYONE bid on IPO shares. If Linux can keep investor's attention and Google announces their own IPO, they could raise much more which could have impact on desktop Linux. Same CEO had near perfect timing raising 300MM with MP3.com IPO." OpenIPO is the same route Andover.net took back in the day.
Ahh, so the real reason they want to avoid a drawn-out battle with MS is revealed.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
And we all know how well that worked out.
sulli
RTFJ.
they should set the name to Tofkal (The OS Formally Known As Lindows)
It worked out for me. I bought and sold and exited with a tidy sum.
Yes, plus the URL is missing the ".com". OpenIPO
The link to OpenIPO is broken. It should be:
http://www.openipo.com/
No, its MegaMillions. You know, the multi-state lotto?
My guess is they're going to go IPO and dump all the money into MegaMillions in order to thwart off SCO's attack.
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
Mod me down if you must, but I hope that a majority of the IPO dollars are spent refining the GUI AND THE FUNCTIONALITY to be more similar to Windows.
The fact of the matter is that it will have to more closely mirror M$'s interface than you think to be accepted, perceived improvements included.
If Longhorn came out with an OSX-like GUI, it would work, but any other OS has to ingratiate itself slowly.
Not that 2008 for Longhorn isn't slow, but you get the point.
I have a plan. Using mainly spoons, we'll tunnel our way out of the city...
MM is a standard postfix for "Million" of a relevant currency in financial circles.
RST
Sales of disco records increased 700% through 1978! If this trend continues...AAAAAYYYYYY!
(No, I'm not sufficiently motivated to go to SNPP and get the quote right.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Short it! I mean, c'mon, this company is run by some juvenile jackass who thought that "Lindows" would be a great name, and actually started to try to defend it. That's the kind of stunt that some college kid could pull, not a CEO of a publicly traded company. I know that I'm waiting for it to peak (day 1), then I'm shorting the hell out of this. Lindows will be long gone within a year or two.
I suspect a big reason people use the current IPO process is not because they feel it's the best process for raising the maximum revenue, but because it raises acceptable amounts of revenue while letting people connected to the IPO profit by purchasing underpriced shares at launch. For this reason IPO shares are usually handed out as perks to people connected with either the company itself or their financial firm.
I submitted a story when Lindows announced their IPO a week ago. Rejected.
Anyway, Lindows (not linspire) is going IPO. They've said that they are going to keep using the Lindows name for their company, and the Linspire name only as a name for their software products in some countries.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
But OpenIPO is designed to let ANYONE bid on IPO shares.
Sounds to me like legal way to scam/cash in on hype and an overenthusiastic general public.
Benjamin Graham (Warren Buffets "idol") used to say that IPO stands for "It's Probably Overpriced".
Factor that in with an irrational and overenthusiastic general public lacking investment skills thinking all IPO:s are winners (they usually forget the last bubble in good times) and you have a table set for even more inflated IPO:s and ludicrous business models going public.
A Euro, dollar, peso, ruble, what?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
MM also means "million."
He had one of his infamous Micheals Minutes a while bakc that discused the ipo porcess he went threw with mp3.com. He was disgusted int he way that the shares were sold to cronies and friends of the finatial institutions that conducted the IPO. It reduced the amount of money the company raised, while make millions for others who did absolutely nothing. So, I'm not suprised he wen OpenIPO on this one. Still, I wouldn't be suprised if this was the begining of the end for Lindows. If you read the public disclosure that accompanied tha annoucement, they mention that they are essentially out of cash, and losing it hand over fist.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
"Same CEO had near perfect timing raising 300MM with MP3.com"
hmmm, what's the current value of MP3.com stock?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I'm sure the people who bought VA Linux at $200-300 a share are still crying in their beer.
On the flip side, how did RHAT get up to $25.. it seems like it was at like $5 not so long ago. Mini-bubble in progress?
It is interesting that this company's management was apparently involved in previous dud tech floats. This is the latest in a long series of floatations by companies that have not gone from the stage of having a good idea to the stage of making money from it. There is an unfortunate precedent for this company: just as users of mp3 sites wanted (at that stage) something for nothing, so linux users are generally still looking at the system as a cheaper, or free, alternative to those on the market. For Lindows to make a decent profit, it will either have to change the culture of its user base, or make serious inroads into the entrenched Windows market. Either will be a formidable task.
The name won't catch on unless it includes at least one recursive letter ;-).
Maybe. If you read the message it makes clear reference to Lindows and IPO, which should spur anyone at all interested in the Lindows.com organization (or at least the lawsuits) to click on the 'when they go public' link to see what's up. The article clearly states the filing of Lindows.com paperwork to initiate an IPO to raise cash.
At first glance I get from the article that Lindows.com is going public to try to raise 50 million dollars. Did I miss something?
Have you hugged your penguin today?
it's almost up to the intial ipo price! (yes, i bought some)
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Do you really think that anybody who paid that much for LNUX can afford to cry in their beer?
This is another stock I'm kicking myself for not shorting. I mean, really.... It didn't get any easier than LNUX. But, while Lindows won't be *quite* such an easy target, I'm sure that many many smart people will make a mint shorting it. I can't wait for all of the Linux fanatics to drive it through the roof the first day!!
Or maybe "Mad Magazine" (according to the link)... which I prefer.
But can someone explain what the huge appeal with Lindows still is? All of the hype building up to the release had to do with it's ability to run Windows apps.
This functionality was never above or beyond any other Linux distribution... so it's just another distro now... right or wrong? What else does it offer besides the click and play?
They should have gone with something like "FM Linux" and then said that FM stood for 'Feature Mature' or some such. Then others could expand the FM a bit differently.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Ok. So you think the Lindows IPO is news. It may well be for some people.
But, when you report about IPOs it is usually a good idea to offer a bit more information about the company and its impending IPO. The link to the SEC document doesn't offer any of this information.
How about a bit of information about the company and its present financials? When is the IPO scheduled to occur? I hope for their sake it is nothing like Andover.
If Linux can keep investor's attention and Google announces their own IPO, they could raise much more which could have impact on desktop Linux.
Its kind of sad how every linux story is always "this will probably maybe most definately finally be the tipping point for desktop linux." Lindows, or whatever their name of the week is, having an IPO for a product that will probably crap out in the near future, certainly won't help linux on the desktop as it will make investors more leary of linux.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
in financial circles.
Slashdot must also be "News for Financial Nerds..."
Standard non-fiancial-geek prefix and postfix would have been $50M
Perhaps it's actually millimeters (mm) capitalized. So, when you're raising capital that's measured in millimeters, you use MM.
LinuXP. Just to screw with that other company.
You'd also sell an extra 2 copies to all the LISP programmers out there who would think it's the "true Linux".
t
Tonkat (The OS Now Known As Tonkat) actually sounds much better than Linspire. Though the Tomcat people may disagree.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
50 millimeters of what?!!?
Why can't the editors be a little sympathetic to lamers like me in expanding acronyms!?!
They are keeping the corporate name Lindows Inc. but the branding of the software changed to Linspire. The name Lindows is legal in the states so no problem with that - they just needed a new brand for Europe.
Lindows - Lindows Is Not Deemed Of Windows' Standards.
Karma: Bad (mostly due to all those "In Soviet Russia" jokes)
> Sounds to me like legal way to scam/cash in on hype and an overenthusiastic general public.
Listen to the feedback this is already generating on Slashdot... I don't think *anyone* is being overenthusiastic. At all.
So is this just another case of corporate execs dumping their investment on the public to cash out? Lindows doesn't seem a large enough company to get much out of an ipo at this time. I would watch if Lindows execs start bailing after the ipo. This could be a bad sign.
Linux fanatics? Lindows? You don't pay much attention to the group you like tweaking, do you?
Still, that doesn't make them right!
Linux fanatics? Lindows? You don't pay much attention to the group you like tweaking, do you?
Good point. I can't wait for all of the techie-wannabes-who-know-the-"Linux"-buzzword types to drive it through the roof the first day!!
MM is a standard postfix for "Million"....
MM is a standard mail application for "Million".
I wonder if you meant POSIX. (Which I still don't think is accurate).
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
This is just an extension of the dot-bomb bubble. Now that the institutional investors are leary about blowing hundreds of millions on the latest IPO scam, OpenIPO swoops in to take the money directly from Joe sixpack. If you think about it, it doesn't really matter whether these companies are selling open source or proprietary software anyway because their real flagship product is selling stock.
-a
Sounds to me like legal way to scam/cash in on hype and an overenthusiastic general public.
Okay. So people are bidding ridiculously high prices on a speculative tech stock. What's the problem? I don't see single mothers and starving children being physically coerced into bidding on IPOs. It sounds to me like you're complaining that consenting adults with extra cash are being allowed to speculate with THEIR OWN MONEY! Imagine that. Next up: Loterry tickets, slot machines, and the blackjack table have worse odds than tech IPOs.
you have a table set for even more inflated IPO:s and ludicrous business models going public
Okay. So don't bid on it, tell your aging parents to not bid on it. And then chill out. Nobody is doing something they don't want to do here.
Tofkal (Tofkal is the OS Formally Known As Lindows)?
http://kered.org
At least if they were selling proprietary software, they'd have a chance at making a profit. As it stands, the current model is:
1. Give away software
2. ???
3. ???
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
You're allowed to short the stock, but the initial purchaser might not be allowed to lend the stock out . So you might have to wait a while (those shares need to trade hands at least once) before shares become available for shorting.
MM? Where is that used, exactly?
I've seen Mn, and just M of course, but MM is a new one to me.
Methinks I see a typo.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If former generations were as sue crazy as the past few have been, we'd all be driving horse drawn carriages on old dirt roads and using the telegraph to communicate. These days, lawsuits are used to stifle INNOVATION like bever before. There are FIVE major labels...FIVE!! They control 90+ percent of the music in the WORLD. If we didn't have a republican controlled everything, they'd likely be proscecuted under the RICO statute as a cartel! Instead, Congress gets nice fat deposits in Switzerland and everything's fine RIGHT?? The bottom line is this: MP3.com tried to buck the cartel. The cartel (with the help of law enforcement) destroyed them. Period.... A perfect (textbook) example of how government works AGAINST the people!
I used to work for a brokerage; the old timers always used MM to refer to a million.
Tonkat (The OS Now Known As Tonkat) actually sounds much better than Linspire.
It's about time someone came up with a tail-recursive acronymic name! There are entirely too many head-recursive names already.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Im thinking Hall of Fame inductee at www.fuckedcompany.com
2. Whole lotta coke, whores, company jets
3. Bleed money like a gut-shot tramau center patient
4. Fold company, voice trite excuses of 'being ahead of time', 'market conditions not right', etc.
5. Laugh all the way to bank
Hey Lindows, the 90s called, they want their business plan back!
50mm == length of Robertson's penis.
sulli
RTFJ.
After all the name changes that they have, they don't need to add recursion! Lindoz (actual original name) Lindows Lin---s Lindash Linspire Linsipid Maybe just L?
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
I read that and thought you said Feature Manure. That would have been entirely appropriate.
The OS defaults to running as root, and you CANNOT run CNR without being root. Not to mention it's set up with insecure Windows Networking compatibility to start with. Really! The preconfigured networking is set with a lot of insecure ports open.
This IPO needs to fail and fail quickly. No one read the article apparently. Spending $6.7 million to get $63,000 in sales is um - BAD BUSINESS.
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
Actually the name hasn't been declared legal yet. The fight's not finished. I'm sick of people who who say Lindows has a right to trade off the Windows name. The geek goes and kicks the bully, and when the bully beats the living crap out of him, he complains. I say let the bully beat him up - they deserve it.
Maybe if they released quality software instead of getting publicity over lawsuits then they might be an asset to Linux. Until then - they are a bunch of charlatans and thieves.
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
Well based on Lindows spending $6.7 million in 2002, and having sales of $63,000, they sure aren't selling software! Stay away from these people. Check my sig for more info on this horrific company. They actually promote porn while selling SurfSafe to protect you from porn! Conflict of interest? Snake oil? YOU decide.
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
The stock market is definately a scam. I learned the hard way myself, losing $2M in "paper money" on an IPO venture during the dotbomb era. The stock market exists simply to keep the money in the hands of the rich and steal it from the middle class.
Security is inversely proportional to the commitment of one desiring to circumvent it.
Why not X-Lindows
....
with the accent on the
ex Lindows.
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
WHITE DEVIL!! YOU's the white devel!!
The only reason a reputable company would use OpenIPO is because their business model is not compelling enough for the big boys of finance to take an interest in.
The capital markets are open for everyone to use, given you have a solid business model. If don't, then you go to "alternative" capital markets, like OpenIPO or junk bonds.
Yea, there are success stories that arise from these alternative financings, but they are rare.
I thought it was just me and RUSH that turned thirty this year. Now it's also D&D on my birthday too...thanx for making me feel old..:)
Well, the US courts have denied Microsoft's request for an injunction. So a legal victory but until trial not declaratively legal. And then there are appeals. But, the injunction was denied which indicates the courts saw enough of a grey area that they can continue.
Then name Lindows may have been an unwise choice given the litigous nature of Microsoft, but I'd hardly say it is obviously illegal.
It seems easy, but shorting is very dangerous. Because all you need is some heavy buying, some good news, etc and suddenly "Hello Mr. Investor, yeah, we'd like you to buy some of that stock you sold" and now you are having to cover your assets during a short squeeze. I look at the short ratio when I buy stock.
Oh and just for a little editorial comment: Many people say the stock market is just like going to Vegas, I say, look at the amount of people that make money in the market. Look at the people that make money in Vegas! There are "safe" bets like betting on broad indices (QQQ - Nasdaq, DIA - Dow, SPY - SP500, EWJ - Japan, IWM - Small Caps) and the earlier you do it the more you end up with when you retire, I have been investing since I was 19 (about two years ago) and have made ~35%.
You only need $500 to start, and with some mutual funds, you can buy in small increments without paying much/any commission.
Don't think you need to be an expert to invest and to profit.
--Joey
You's da White Devil!!!