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Be Inc. IPO-bound

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the come-get-some dept.

Dr. Tom was the first to send us the Be Inc. IPO announcement from E-Trade. Very cool OS, and I hope the sale goes well. E-Trade will be accepting apps for distribution to members, and also notes that while the registration statement has been filed, it's not been accepted by the SEC. Check out the Yahoo Biz story for more details.

10 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You call yourselves Geeks?! by Brian+Knotts · · Score: 2
    With the next major release of BeOS, y'all Linux weenies will be running for cover. The net networking system will make BeOS just as capable a server as Linux.

    A *single-user* server? Yeah, sounds great.

    --

  2. Re:seriously though by HardCase · · Score: 2

    The IPO will provide them with the capital that they need to pursue just that issue. Of course, whether it works or not is a matter of speculation.

    Something that appeals to me about Be, as opposed to, say, Yahoo or Excite, is that that Be actually has a product, a physical "thing" that they can sell. Rather than being a nebulous, non-producing company, they do have something to sell. Now, that may not make any difference if the operating system ends up being another OS/2, but it does make them somewhat more traditional than the current crop of Internet companies.

    That being said, I can say that I have no intention of investing my money in Be. I don't think that they are poised to step in as a replacement for anyone. They certainly don't compete with Microsoft and they aren't the media darling that is Linux. But perhaps they will find a niche.

    Oh, and I do use BeOS 4.5 on one of my systems, but only because they sent it to me for free!

    =h=

  3. Who uses Be anyway??? by Cptn+Proton · · Score: 2

    I wish everyone's business well, but I gotta be honest here. I just do not see a large groundswell of userbase forming.

    Just a bunch of daytraders looking for the next 'tech' IPO they think that they can schmooze a buck from.

    I'd bet more people use FORTH than Be.

  4. Wow. Now if only they could kick the Mac's a**... by SirWinston · · Score: 2

    I'm glad to see that Be is doing well. Quite frankly, it's an OS that's ready for prime time--it fulfills the promise which the Mac used to have.

    But I think what's really hurt them in the long run is their very "niceness" and lack of aggression. Yes, they're the "Media OS" extraordinaire, and marketing themselves as that got their feet in a lot of doors. But they should have expanded on that once they did get a foothold--they should have started a long time ago to market themselves as a mainstream OS, and the perfect choice for "grown-up Mac users" so to speak. As someone who started out on Macs, at a college full of Macs, I have a special liking for BeOS which is everything MacOS *should* have become. But, thanks to the stereotype of Be as a "niche" OS, few people outside the technobubble ever even hear of Be. If they'd been aggressive, said and done a few of the things the Linux community has done and said about Microsoft and their kind of software, then they would have gotten the press necessary to raise their visibility a long time ago.

    Think about it: Linux has the visibility, and is waiting on the GUI-liciousness to move into the seat occupied by Windows. BeOS, on the other hand, has the smoothness of silk and is easy enough for WebTV'er to use, while incredibly robust and capable--but it lacks the visibility of Linux. Of course it also lacks the hardware support which Linux offers, but *that* is also a function of visibility--Be would have lots of developers, if it were more visible, and so higher profile would have given it enough hardware support to seriously push on Windows right now.

    There's the Catch-22, which can be reduced to what I said in the beginning--Be got its foot in the door by being "the Media OS", but once they did they should have become as vocal as the Linux community, as persistent about the superiority of their OS, and they should have actively dragged potential developers to their camp through the media attention they could have gotten. But they missed out, and now Linux has come up from behind and become *the* challenger which Be could have been. Just my 2 cents...

    * * * *
    "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient..."--Justice Brandeis

    http://homestead.dejanews.com/user.sirwinston/fi les/page1.html

    --
    "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
  5. OS/2 is much better supported by timur · · Score: 2
    I like BeOS, I even have it installed on my computer, but I never boot it. Why? Because I can do everything I want and more in OS/2. OS/2 Warp 4 is light years ahead of BeOS in terms of application and software support. For starters, OS/2 has two major office suites: Smart Suite and Star Office. OS/2 also has Netscape Communicator. OS/2 runs a lot of Unix apps, including Gimp, thanks mostly to its excellent Unix emulation (XFree86 and emx). OS/2 also runs DOS apps better than any other OS, and it runs Windows 3.1 apps and a small number of Win32 apps. OS/2 also has top-notch Java support, ranked #1 in performance time and again.

    OS/2 also has 10 years of hardware support. Lots of IHV's still write OS/2 drivers (Crystal Semi, Matrox, 3COM, Adaptec, etc) but don't even care about BeOS.

    A Be engineer said earlier this year that he think s there are 25,000 BeOS users out there. 25K!?!?!? That's tiny!!! OS/2 has easily two orders of magnitude more users than that (granted, a lot of them are in banks, but it still counts).

    Many of you might think that OS/2 is dead. Well, if you just compare the numbers, then it means that BeOS is stillborn.
    Timur Tabi
    Remove "nospam_" from email address

  6. Some thoughts on Be's viability by daviddennis · · Score: 2
    I certainly understand the skepticism of other readers when confronted with the bare facts behind the Be IPO. And certainly I wouldn't make a short-term investment in it; the IPO itself is as likely to sink as to rise.



    But for the long term, I think there are some interesting factors at work here.

    • Applications. Yes, there is no Microsoft Office for BeOS. But that has let interesting little companies such as GoBe and BeatWare produce genuinely innovative products at very low prices. There are at least two companies producing professional-level video editing systems for the BeOS. With Be's ability to produce astonishing multi-media performance compared to NT or MacOS, I think this is an exceptional opportunity for the hapless consumer, burdened with poor-quality Windows products in the video editing space, to use a worthwhile and cost-effective solution.







    • Loyalty. Those who use BeOS love it with similar fervor to OS/2, Amiga, Linux and Mac users. The main thing that sets BeOS apart is that it's designed to co-exist with Windows, so you don't have to give up your Windows to use BeOS. It's a lot like Microsoft's oh-so-successful transition between DOS and Windows - you could ignore Windows, but when you wanted to use it, it was there. At $ 69.99, BeOS is an impulse purchase, just like Red Hat Linux without the complex installation. No hefty investment in additional hardware needed, which I think is key to its success.







    • Quality. Like Linux, BeOS is rock solid. It stays up. Unlike Linux, it has a coherent GUI that's slick, easy to learn and consistent. It was designed from the ground up to run well on any hardware, but to take advantage of multi-processing when available. Also unlike Linux, downloading and installing commercial applications is very slick and smooth.







    • Installation ease. If your hardware is supported - and it's looking pretty good for new PCs - BeOS is trivial to install. Put the CD in the drive, boot, answer a question about partition size (well explained in the manual), and you're off.



    I think BeOS is a compelling solution for the type of person who just wants to do things with their computers. They can dabble in graphics with the arty programs available, try out sleek and smooth video editing systems, and even write documents and spreadsheets with GoBe. The weakest point is the web browser, which cannot access web sites relying on JavaScript. But that will change once Bezilla and Opera appear on the scene.



    I see BeOS sneaking through the back door of computing, and I'm betting this is exactly what Jean-Louis Gassee wants. If I had a balanced stock portfolio of $ 50k or more, I'd throw $ 500 his way and let him run with the ball. I think it will be one heck of a ride.



    D
    ----
    1. Re:Some thoughts on Be's viability by SirWinston · · Score: 2

      Umm, "It was designed from the ground up to run well on any hardware"--*not*. I wish it were, but it isn't. Be just doesn't have the coders right now to support very much hardware. You mention that it looks good for people with new hardware--false. It only looks good for people with new, standard hardware from the top few major vendors. My kick-ass K6-2 450, just a month old, has a great motherboard--whose chipset isn't supported. Forget about it if you have an older but decent computer with an older but good graphics board--which is a HUGE segment of the market which Be *should* go after. How many people have brand-new boxes, compared to those who use PCs which are a couple of years old--in my post above, I mentioned that Be *should* have gone after the whole market, not just a niche market, after it got its foot in the door by being a "Media OS". Let's face it: Be could have been a serious challenger to Windows (it's certainly *better* than Windows), but they adopted this "complement to Windows" strategy which is going to be their undoing. Non-media-based companies aren't going to buy it, colleges aren't going to buy it, and most regular people who want to change or experiment are going to get Linux instead because of its high profile compared to Be. BTW, I found it annoying and insulting that the Be hardware support page mentioned that they're only concentrating on supporting Intel processors and glue chipsets designed for the Intel--again, they're alienating a big segment of their potential market: the kind of person likely to buy an alternative OS as an "impulse purchase," as you put it, is the same kind of person who's likely to buy an AMD chip or some unusual, unsupported hardware.

      I really don't think Be will make much headway unless it starts to make the same noise Linux makes--a lot of people try Linux for the same reason Apple sales skyrocketed after that Superbowl commersial where the hot chick throws a sledgehammer through the screen of Big Brother (representing IBM): they want to be part of the defiance of Microsoft, they want to rebel, and ride the wave of coolness and chic which accompanies rebellion. But Be doesn't rebel against Microsoft, they pussy out and say what a great complement to Windows they are. That's not the way to make a product attractive--they should say "We're better than Windows, and as easy to use as a Mac. We're the best of both worlds, and as stable as Linux." *That's* the way to make their OS attractive. *That* would have gotten them sales on par with those of boxed Linux distros--maybe even greater. But choosing the "safe" path, the "quiet" marketing, has carved out a small niche where they'll stay until they learn to hawk their wares as loudly as Linux.

      --
      "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
  7. IPO Mania! by iota · · Score: 3

    What Slashdot needs is an IPO icon and category... how about a picture of a bandwagon full of money? Seems so many start-ups and businesses we've known for so long are now stockmarket-bound :) I'm just waiting for Transmeta to hop on the IPO bandwagon.

    "I welcome you all to the first shareholders meeting for Transmeta Corp. I would like to tell you how our product development is going, but then I'd have to kill you. Thank you all for investing, and don't worry! We'll release something, someday!"

    When's the Slashdot IPO? I'd invest... "Buy now! Own your stake of Rob! Traded on NASDAQ, symbol SDOT!!"

    :)
    jason

  8. It's really the concept, not the current result. by dbaker · · Score: 2
    When an investor considers investing in Be, they are not investing in the current quality of the product; they are investing in the concept of Be and the mission of the company. As long as the current result falls in line with the general mission of the company, it can be assumed that the company in question is on course.

    If a company had to be extremely successful, popular, and reliable before they IPOed, trying to have a startup (especially tech startups) in this world would be extremely different than it is today. Companies such as Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) are fairly accurate examples of this situation.

    While Be doesn't currently have the application base to be a strong competitor against the other OSes, one should evaluate the possibilities that will evolve as the company (and software!) develops.
    --
    Daniel Baker - dbaker@cuckoo.com - dbaker@distributed.net

  9. Please read the prospectus before speaking for Be. by _Stryker · · Score: 3
    Did you read the risk factors that they present? They aren't planning on using the money to develop new products for the OS. The OS is their only product. From page 8 of the prospectus:

    We have only one product that may never gain broad market acceptance.

    BeOS is our only product and we will derive all our revenue for the foreseable future from sales of BeOS. To date, BeOS has been used primarily by a limited number of enthusiast and application developers...

    They go on to say on page 9:

    Our success depends upon availability of third party applications that operate on BeOS.

    Demand and market acceptance for BeOS will significantly depend upon the availability of an increasing number of third party applications that operate on the BeOS platform. These applications include video and audio editing programs, 3D games, creative audio and video content development and manipulation, and personal productivity applications.

    We intend to encourage the development of an increasing number of applications that operate on BeOS by attracting third party developers to the BeOS platform and by maintaining our existing developer relationships through marketing, technical support and financial incentives for third party developers. However, third party developers are generally under no obligation to develop applications based on the BeOS platform.
    ---