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OpenIPO and Lindows

Posted by Hemos on from the raising-the-money dept.

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.

8 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Broken Link by xy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The link to OpenIPO is broken. It should be:

    http://www.openipo.com/

  2. Re:Who is raising what 50 MM for? 300MM? by LouCifer · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
  3. Desktop Realitites by deliciousmonster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...
    1. Re:Desktop Realitites by happyfrogcow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mod me down if you must... [snip]

      You hear him. Mods, get at it!

      Seriously though, screw MS-Windows functionality. In Outlook it sometimes freezes for a minute if I make a quick mouse movement and click on a menu. It feels like it's pondering which button I really wanted to click on, almost as though the click event happened in two different widgets. And after a minute of what I can only believe is highly intelligent AI computations, it finally determines that I wanted to click on "View" instead of the printer icon.

      Now the quality of the GUI is arguable. It's widely known, and while that's not all it has going for itself, I feel it's the bigest reason why people continue to use new iterations of MS products. If the computer illiterate has to do anything other than their repetitious task, they won't know what to do (i mean, the structure of menus within menus leading to dialog windows isn't obvious). But this mostly comes down to the fact that the typical users don't ever read the documentation or bother with the help system.

      So what's my point... I guess that it is this. We do need a consistent Look and Feel in Linux, that is atleast superficially similar to other popular GUI's, but in functionality (average response time..etc) it should surpass those other GUI's. Arguably we have this already through "themes", though maybe not completely (GTK, QT, TK, Swing, etc all look different).

      What I fear is that a lot of that IPO money will probably end up in marketting, causing Lindows to be the first Linux introduction to many people. I don't know a lot about Lindows but I doubt it is up to large scale scrutiny. A bad distro + MS-FUD could do some big damage to public perception of Linux.

  4. Re:Who is raising what 50 MM for? 300MM? by rebeka+thomas · · Score: 5, Informative

    MM is a standard postfix for "Million" of a relevant currency in financial circles.

    --
    RST
  5. Great opportunity to make $$$ by NineNine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  6. Scamming people legally by BuddieFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Lindows IPO by doodlelogic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.