Be, Inc. to go public?

Jump Suit Jesse writes "It's been a long time in the making, but Be, Inc. may finally be going public. It should be interesting to see how this IPO fares before the alleged Red Hat IPO. Perhaps this cash infusion will be used for a nice propaganda campaign. "

Comments

Objections

[Chexum]

Well, I haven't seen BeOS, my bad. But I'm not the kind of guy who likes to play with OS'es, I even hasn't all the time I need to tweak with Linux :)

But, BeOS still might be an excellent, comfortable, inexpensive, great commercial OS. That's OK. But it's still proprietary. Why do one needs to be enslaved to another company?

I didn't think I'm freedom-addicted to GPL, but I start to think if anything's going to be a big success for a long time, it won't be "another one", be it just another audio codec, another TV format, another commercial OS.

I want a paradigm shift. Like, the internet; like Linux. Like, throwing out the marketing business and have no ads. (Use the search engines.)

The world is really changing, and you can't build the unknown future on todays' commercially available material.

(I really fail to see how any commercial OS'es could take new followers if not based on a really different idea: freedom). Nevertheless, BeOS might be a big success -- for a while --, but then *we* will come :)

Public Be

[bjb]

While I'd like to see this company go public, I don't know if it is going to draw much attention to the operating system. I mean that in the way that it is going to ride the initial hype wave of "Look! It's another dot-com!" and the price will jump. Most people on Wall St. don't know much about technology, and the analysts probably are going to just look at what their e-commerce potential is. I don't see the BeOS as much of an internet strategy, and that is what the street craves currently. Yes, BeOS is quite a good technology, but consider this: What is better, the 3Dfx Voodoo chipset or the TNT? 3Dfx is the one in the market's favor right now, despite the fact that the TNT actually shows more promise right now.

The street is going to jump on it initially, because everyone is looking for that technology stock that is going to make them rich. However, once they realize that it is an operating system company competing with Microsoft and that the market share is relatively low, the price will drop back down. If you want to short, this probably is a good one to do ;-)

Great. Another OS for stockholders.

[mcramer]

There are two sides to going public. You get a large amount of cash, true, but you also become a slave to stockholders. Jean-Louis Gassee may have great plans for his technology, but stockholders tend to have great plans only for their investments.

BeOS IPO

[Shadowlion]

I can hardly wait to read all of the comments. "BeOS sucks." "BeOS is a crappy OS." "BeOS has no apps." "BeOS isn't open source."

I wonder how many of the people who feel qualified to comment on Be and/or BeOS have actually used the operating system for any length of time and tried to be objective about it. From some of the content-free bashing on Slashdot, it seems that the extent of some opinions are formed from either somebody else's comments or from finding a screenshot off the web.

It may not be up to the same level of usability that Linux is, and it may not have the same level of developer support, it may not be open source, and _God_forbid_ that it have one built-in GUI with no themes support - but don't fall into the Stallman/Raymond-esque viewpoint of "all closed-source software sucks simply because it's closed-source software".

For all of the shouting the Linux community does about "judging Linux on its merits, not on the FUD Microsoft spreads," I find it very ironic that the Linux community turns around and performs the same Microsoft-ish actions to others. Judge BeOS on its merits. If it has lacking driver and application support (as it does), point it out. If you think the closed-source nature of the software is a negative, point it out. But at least give BeOS credit for the things it does well.

I understand the desire to be proud of what Linux has accomplished, especially given the mutually exclusive natures of Linux and the commercial software market - but don't let pride lead to arrogance. Be proud of what you've accomplished, but don't shit on the little people because of it. Arrogance stems from insecurity (example: Microsoft). If you really believe how great Linux is, there's no need to bash the other guy. Let the merits of Linux speak for themselves.

BeOS may not be Linux, and it probably will never be Linux, but not everything *has* to be Linux.