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Red Hat Listed Among 50 Top Tech Companies

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the fashionable-headware-is-critical-at-parties dept.

Kelvin Ekston writes " Red Hat is listed among ZDNet Asia's 50 Top Tech companies 2006. It is also one of the fastest growing companies with 210.4% year on year income growth over 4 years. While almost all Linux companies grapple with the perennial question of how they can make money through software subscriptions and services rather than selling packaged boxes, Red Hat finally managed to improve credibly and match the hype with substance and show the way to do business with Linux. That's the way to go!"

9 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. What a suprise..... by wpiman · · Score: 5, Informative

    The ad sponsors for the link are IBM, EMC and Redhat. Can you guess which three companies are on the list?

    1. Re:What a suprise..... by FortKnox · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Beat me to the punch.
      Its the same as when people complain that surveys done that show Windows is better than Linux is funded by Microsoft. This should be taken with a large grain (hell, a pinch) of salt.

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    2. Re:What a suprise..... by timeOday · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Microsft is on the list too.

      Besides, RedHat's 36% annual revenue growth for 4 years is impressive. Sure it's easier for smaller company to score big growth numbers, but $200M in revenue and 36% annual growth seems like a pretty nice place to be.

      The nice thing is RedHat's success actually means something to Linux users, even if they're not RedHat customers, because RedHat is quite active in developing OSS.

  2. And to see the fruits of their labor... by TheLevelHeadedOne · · Score: 5, Informative

    check out http://www.centos.org/

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  3. No surprise by AceyMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Redhat, everyone should agree, is one of the biggest players in a space we all know is growing nicely, and already has a pretty solid presence in the business space.

    Cracking the top 50 isn't surprising, or terribly newsworthy.

    That said, it's more proof that Linux® is on the radar screen, which is nice.

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    -- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
    1. Re:No surprise by DogDude · · Score: 5, Interesting

      and already has a pretty solid presence in the business space.

      Yeah. 2 years of profits. That's solid.

      That might be considered "solid" in the Open Source industry, but as a business in general, they're still considered a relatively unproven start-up. I want to see at least a solid 5-10 years of profitability before I'd consider investing a dime, personally.

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      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:No surprise by Bogtha · · Score: 5, Informative

      I want to see at least a solid 5-10 years of profitability before I'd consider investing a dime, personally.

      Redhat merged with Cygnus, didn't they? Cygnus have been profitable using an open-source business model since the late 80s/early 90s. And Redhat as a whole have been doing business for 12 years too - although they haven't always been in the black, they have still managed to pay the bills, pay wages, and put out products that people buy for well over a decade. Redhat aren't as unproven as you make out.

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      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
  4. Is Red Hat Linux? by FishandChips · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's interesting to see that they've managed this with less than 1000 employees. Only two others in the list are comparable in this respect. Plenty of other companies on the list have thousands or tens or thousands of employees.

    Red Hat's stock is on an astronomical PE ratio, higher even than Google's. It's pretty instructive comparing the PE ratio to, say, Novell's which is about a tenth as high.

    So, I guess it's clear the financial market is very much buying the line that "Red Hat is Linux", perhaps much more than was the case a year or two ago. Nice news if you're Red Hat. Not so nice for anyone else.

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  5. Re:And I was going to say ... by talksinmaths · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Redhat tends to be the whipping boy of the Linux enthusiasts on Slashdot

    I agree, but one must keep in mind that this says far more about the character and maturity of Linux enthusiasts on Slashdot than it does about the RedHat distro.

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