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Red Hat Vs. The Lawyers
ajs writes "On July 13, Red Hat announced that they would be re-stating their revenues for the last 3 years. This sent a shock-wave through their stock price, but early analysis seems to indicate that it's not that big a deal (the end-result is the same for a given contract, but it will be counted toward a different month). But then the really bad news hit. [Opportunistic lawyers] are taking this opportunity to punish Red Hat for reporting the change and the resulting drop in price. Red Hat is doing well, but can they weather major class action law suits without harming the business? How have other technology companies dealt with this sort of suit?"
I wish , just once.. a company I owned stock in would restate their books in a positive manner... ie: oops, we forgot to count that extra 200 million worth of revenue.
That'd be a pleasant change.
...suing a company that has all its intellectual property assets under the GPL. Are the lawyers going to try to get their fees from Bob Young's enormous collection of Tux plushies?
You know why RHAT fell so hard? Because I bought a few shares just a few weeks ago. Whatever stock I buy, the behavior is the same - it goes down the drain really quickly.
Now if RHAT pays me a million bucks I'll dump the stock and their problems may go away. Or they may not.
Red Hat will come out unscathed if they go with the precedent set by the current OS market leader in recent class action suits. They should arrange a settlement where they give coupons for free copies of Linux to the shareholders and random unrelated school districts.
You know, that'd be a great name for a rock and roll band.