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Be Inc. IPO launched
arielb writes "Be, Inc. is now trading actively on the Nasdaq exchange.. Their ticker symbol is BEOS."
They announced at $6 and went up a little.
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Man, I think it might be a bit early to start counting them out. I mean, I like OSS and everything, but losing a little market share doesn't mean they're dead.
A better example is SGI; they're basically living off their savings right now (somewhere in the area of $100 million); they can go on for a couple more years that way. Of course, eventually the cash runs out, then you'd better do something right and quick (yeah, they're moving in the right direction, but I'm fearful that their investments in Linux may take years to pan out).
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Of course, Linux doesn't play by the same rules as the rest 'o them...
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So yeah, I've played with it. I didn't say that it wasn't a really keen OS, did I? Actually, if you read the original post, I said that superior tech doesn't mean you win the game.
By the by, do you think that the incredibe similarity beween Linux and other UN*Xes might have something to do with it catching on in the server market? Just a thought.
I believe the point I was making was that putting your money into a company like Be is only slightly less risky and investment than burning it in your fireplace (which would at least heat your home). That's not a comment on their product, it's a comment on their business plan (which goes something like "Maybe people will want to dual-boot us! Hey, it could happen!").
In any event, if you'd take your ritlin and read my original post next time, perhaps future rants like this one could be avoided. Of course, perhaps not since I doubt your .03 second attention span has allowed you to read more than the subject line of this post, either.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Be's stock might do well in the short run, but dumping your hard-earned saving into it is a big gamble. Let's face it, they have no long-term prospects.
I mean, this is just another company foolishly deciding to compete with Microsoft by MS's rules in a game that MS has already beaten every other contender in. If Linux proves anything, it proves that the only way to brawl with Microsoft and survive is to change the rules of the game - to (forgive me) think different.
Besides, Be has no long-term prospects and they don't have an established niche in the market yet. To top it off, the market they claim to be after (graphic design, etc) is one where the user base is infamously loyal to their current platform.
I know I'll probably get flamed 'cause BeOS is a good system, but anyone over the age of 15 should realize that that's not enough (remember MacOS versus DOS back in the old days? In retrospect, which was really better? Yet which one is used on 90% of PCs now?). Trust me, the only hope that Be has in the next couple of years is that they'll be bought out by someone big - maybe IBM or a company like AOL.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Let's examine this: Be has effectively 0% of the market, they have only a few programs available for their OS, the market they're aiming at (graphic design, layout, etc) is already unreasonably loyal to their current platform, and they're pursuing a typical closed-source business model in a market utterly owned by MS.
Maybe I'm not seeing it? Look, $61 million isn't *that* much money when you're talking about a fairly big business, especially a business that's been operating without any income for the last 4-5 years.
Besides, what makes them different from all the other "better" systems that will let them beat Windows? I think Microsoft has already proven that nobody can stand against them when they play by the traditional rules in the OS market.
I'm not saying that BeOS is a gonner for sure, I'm just saying that they're a real long shot. I hope nobody out there makes it more than a small part of their portfolio, 'cause after a few short-term gains they're liable to lose their shirts.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Perhaps, but I'd consider it unlikely. Red Hat knows it will be receiving more media attention, so their IPO price is likely to be around $12, double that of BE's IPO price. This leaves less room for it to go up (which is what's supposed to happen - it should IPO at what's expected to be the market value, not at a ridiculously low price)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yeah, but you can't buy fewer than 100 shares of stock anyway. If you buy 100 shares of stock at $8, you can break even by selling them at $8.30, only a 3.75% increase in value.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Um.... They did raise money, at $6 a share. That's what an IPO is. If the stock goes up, BEOS doesn't get the money, the people who sell the shares do. If the company holds onto some stock, however, selling that later might make them some money.
That's why Bill Gates is rich: he kept all his stock.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
That BeOS earned almost half of what it expected to. They were originally going to offer the shares at $10 a throw, at the start, but had to slash this to $6.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The stock closed at 2 1/16 up, for a total of 8 1/16. For 6 million shares, this means that Be has $12,375,000 more than during opening. If this is not good, I don't know what is.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Sure you can. I've bought in blocks of 200 shares, blocks of 75, blocks of 50 shares, anything you want.
Step 1.) Read Slashdot.
Step 2.) Watch Slashdot for updates on BeOS technology.
Step 3.) When you see a significant technological breakthrough from Be, Get greedy, go postal, and buy up all remaining stock in Be.
Step 4.) After the general public gets wind of that "significant technological breakthrough", sell of your stock at double+ price.
Step 5.) Donate money to Slashdot, Myself, The FSF, Myself, and anyone else you care to give generously to. (Myself included. Hey, It was MY IDEA!)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I believe Gasse *wanted* $400-$500 Million for Be, and Apple turned him down. NeXT was purchased for about the same amount.
(Considering at the time BeOS was just out of beta, and NeXTStep had been around for years and was considered pretty robust, Be's asking price was pretty high. Plus they got Steve Jobs.)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The question is: Would MacOS-nextgeneration be out by now if they had bought BeOS instead?
I don't think so... Here's what they would have needed to do in either case:
1) Port to PowerPC. Not necessary for BeOS, but apparently NeXT (just like everyone else) had done some work there in the early 90s.
2) Run the old MacOS in the "Blue Box" on top of the new OS. Probably has more to do with hooks in the MacOS itself than the new OS, so equal work for either.
3) Overhaul the look-and-feel of the BeOS, write a new "Finder" - I haven't used BeOS, so I don't know how close they already are, but lets assume equal work for either Be or Next.
4) Develop "Carbon", a transition API, for the established Mac software base. Again, probably equal work for either Be or Next.
So, even if they'd bought BeOS, I don't see MacOSX Client coming out any earlier. Plus, they wouldn't have the added extras that they got with NeXTStep - multiuser, postscript drawing engine, UNIX, plus Web Objects and a number of existing NeXTStep apps and companies.
All this might be moot, however, if Be proves to be a much better video platform than OSX Client. (Isn't Avid dropping the Mac due to porting costs?)
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I don't think PageMaker (or any other Adobe product) has really felt any competition from Microsoft. MS is aiming at the lowend graphics market with PhotoSomething2000, but I don't know if people who buy Photoshop for $600 are really in that market. And MS Publisher - I don't think that's taken seriously at all.
Some people have successfully competed with Microsoft in the Windows app market:
+ Lotus Notes outsells Exchange client licences. (chalk that up to a huge installed base going back 10+ years)
+ Anything by Adobe
+ CorelDraw
+ FileMaker for Windows has a steadly growing
base - at least it hasn't been crushed by Access like DBase and Paradox were.
+ Anything competing with MS J++
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The thread lives...
I'll give you #3, but I think you need to consider #2 a tie. MacOS 7 ran in a "Blue Box" on the old A/UX operating system, and doing this is the only realistic way for 99% compatibility with existing sofware.
As for Unix - 99% of Mac users shouldn't need to care. (They will care if they have to start editing config files! Fear.) The few Mac sysadmins I know are interested in a good server platform, because right now the predominate Mac file+print server is Windows NT.
I'll agree that BeOS would have been a great choice for MacOSX. It's definately closer in spirit to MacOS than NeXTStep. It didn't happen however, so Be will have to live on as it's on system. NeXTStep wasn't exactly alive in recent years, so maybe I'm just happy that it's back. (My biggest concern with Be is that I hold Gasse responsible for many of Apple's fuck-ups in the 80s. Let's just say that I'd take Jobs and his fuck-ups over Gasse's)
PS - WebObjects is an actual profitable product (an applicaiton server), not a buzzword.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Before BeOS - or any platform, for that matter - can get a really good footing in the market people need a good reason for using it as opposed to something else. That usually means offering an application that many people need that no one else can (or does) offer. For the Apple (back in the day) that was the spreadsheet. Lately, M$ has cloned, bought, or otherwise scuttled everyone else's efforts at making a killer app of the sort. IMHO, this is the biggest way in which M$ denies market entry to other companies. Again IMHO, the need for low-price medium-sized Web servers was what allowed Linux+Apache to break into the server market; I'm not sure whether that makes Apache the killer app for Linux or vice-versa ;) Meanwhile, there is no killer app for the Linux desktop environment. I see a link between this lack of a killer app and the slow growth of Linux in the desktop market as compared to its growth in the mid-sized server market.
My point is that, admitting that BeOS is wonderful and has great potential, until it has something to offer that Windows can't BeOS won't last in the long run.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
The IPO was for 6 million shares at $6 per.
Be therefore makes $6 x 6,000,000 = $36,000,000
they get this money from the underwriter, and it is the underwriter then turns around and sells those 6 million shares on the market and it is they who make money if they can sell those shares at more than $6.
If you add in Intel's $25,000,000, be has $61,000,000 on hand. Given that they've spent a total of $56,000,000 since 1990 they will be around for a long time to come which is great news for us Be fans (sorry OSS types but BeOS is here to stay)
The bottom line is that BeOS is just too good to go away.
The underwriter doesn't want to look bad by having an IPO they're launching to do badly. If it did, that would reflect that they screwed up by mispricing the issue. The way they guard against this is by pricing slightly conservatively, and by initally actively supporting the stock in the open market by buying it back when it is cheap. This is why IPOs can often drop after the initial increase - not only does interest wane, but the underwriter will stop supporting the stock.
Be has a shot, but a very very small one. In all likelyhood, they'll fail, but as the original poster suggested, they may get bought out. If AOL or somesuch company can snap up Be and market the BeOS (providing it's still technically superior by that time), I'll cheer.
The stock may not be a good investment, but, for many of us, it's an ethically sound one. Support the most superior OS, and if you lose your money, well, hopefully you weren't trusting enough to invest much.
BTW, as I write this, Be's stock has only gained $2 from its starting price of $6. Doesn't that strike you as a very small gain for a tech stock? Yikes...
Wah!