Slashdot Mirror
VA hints more about going public
An anonymous bastard writes "I'll be covering LWCE next week, and so I'm on a list of e-mail addresses for "the press" who get invited to interview "Linux People" for their publications. One of the e-mails was from the PR firm for VA Linux Systems (formerly VA Research) asking if I'd want to interview Larry Augustin.
Interesting to note was this phrase: "Larry is one of the keynote speakers at the show, and
has a lot of VA-related news and annct's to brief you on before VA goes into its quiet period."
Apparently they've got a quiet period coming up, which means Linux IPO Number Two is coming.
" Well, I've had a nice conversation with the press person at VA-they wanted to assure me that they are not headed directly into the quiet period post-LWCE. It'll be sometime soon, but don't hold your breath waiting for it-at least for the next couple weeks. *grin* Bottom line: Still waiting.
Another Linux IPO, except this time it's a hardware company so no-one can bitch. Someone'll still find a reason, though.
This is the best news of all the Linux IPOs so far. It's all very well having a cool OS, but with accompanying hardware, it'll be something people can really appreciate.
Coming on the heels of the Red Hat announcement, this can only help raise awareness of Linux in circles at the opposite extreme from Geekdom.
With several consecutive IPO's managers and investors will start to appreciate the momentum of Linux before they even get a chance to understand why it has such momentum. All of the subsequent attention also serves to detract from the what was recently thought of as the "juggernaut" of NT. Truly a good thing.
Geeky modern art T-shirts
One thing that concerns me about all of this is that Linux grows too fast and becomes somewhat of a fad. NT rode the "fad train" for some time. Managers and VPs were recommending it before the people in the trenches knew what was going on.
Ironically, Linux is being driven from the opposite end - the admins and UNIX gurus are pushing forward. These IPOs have the potential to push Linux into the spotlight too soon, bringing it to the attention of the IT managers who will attempt to deploy Linux in situations where certain key features are immature or not optimized, giving NT fans ammo to fire back.
We need to avoid IPO frenzies and keep Linux on track, as it has been.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
Now, I have no questions about thier quality, knowledge, and service. It's my understanding that VA Res^H^H^HLinux Systems is one of the best in these areas.
What strikes me as odd, is the staff, and the push for "talent." Maybe I am wrong here, but for about 4 months now (at least) it was looking like VARe^H^HLinux Systems was after every and any "Big Name" in the Linux community. It seemed that there wasn't a "plan" because they were all over the map, GUI people, drivers people, etc...
Then, the plan comes to light. Get big names, get attention, get more money, get more backing, get more big name people, get more backing, get more money.... Uh. Well, that's what I see right now anyway. I hope I am wrong.
Now don't get me wrong, VA Linux Systems and it's "partner" companies that it now owns would be a great place to work. And, I can't think of more knowledgeable people to work with than the people VA employees. And, _IF_ they are just hiring talent, and allowing these great coders to just "do thier thing" and write for Linux, that's really cool. But, it just seems a little "lurky" to me. I'd just like to see some clear information out there... For Example:
VA Linux OS Version 6.0 Kit Now, what the heck is this? No more does VA give you a choice of OS's, they made thier own. Well, good, maybe, bad maybe... Considering the talent that is there, this could mean that they have a custom kernel for each system (duals, quads, etc), a nice professional GUI and administration package from thier GUI team, and drivers that are rock solid from the drivers guys on staff. And with all this, you know the staff will be there to "help you out" by getting you the right binary packages, optimized for you system, avaliable on thier FTP sites, orginized just for your system, ready at each software update... Waahoo... Corporate No Brainer Linux Solution. But... I don't think I see that happening, VA's FTP site is REALLY LACKING considering the staff they have there, and they don't say anything about this new "VA Linux OS" package, and I have even emailed them to ask what it's based on (Red Hat I suspect), if anything at all, and they never even wrote me back..
So, Although I see some good there, I still see a lot of spending, and not a lot of "value" that will draw more consumers. So, I don't think I would be standing in line to get at the IPO. At least not with what I know now.
Oh, and the Intel thing... Hard to have a low end system when Intel is your major financial backer. Ever wonder why they don't have any systems for under $2,000 and no systems with AMD processors?
VA used to support more distros and we will be supporting more in the future (look at our hiring of Joey and Sean for debian) it's just that while we were growing exponentially, we had to grow fast, so we cut the product line down and settled on our most popular distribution until we had the bandwidth to handle more.
Again, VA has it's own machine configuration and not it's own distribution As far as standing in line for the IPO that's your call, but the reason we hire the people we do is to make it possible to create the best linux machines we can. That's our value.
We do have machines under 2000$. And as far as AMD goes, we'd love to have a broader product line and include them, and we may later, but it's more like why we chose red hat above, we had to choose what we wanted to ship a -lot- of and concentrate on it.
So there you go.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Now, if I could only NOT receive any special offers about buying stock, that'd be just great :-)
Good luck.
I hate to disappoint everyone, but we're not exactly announcing an IPO today.
I do find it really amusing to come to work and see everyone buzzing about us going IPO because they read it on slashdot, though. We were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out who it was that sent this email out, and then after I read the email that this guy ACTUALLY got, I thought to myself "oh, he figures we're going public just because we say we're IPO track? oh nevermind, this guy's just a donut" *grin*
enough for now.
--
Geoff Harrison (http://mandrake.net)
Senior Software Engineer - VA Linux Labs (http://www.valinux.com)
Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison
Some Random UI Hacker
But since your here, and answering questions, how about these.. Why did VA buy out Mandrakes company then, thier mostly GUI related. And have you hired Raster yet? Something is in the GUI pipeline there, it's not that easy to hide who you hire and who you talk to ;-)
And, any ETA on the AMD systems or return to other distributions? Even a wild guess? 1 year too long before the groth settles? 6 months? 2 years?
And... I really would LOVE to see someone with VA's quality enter the FreeBSD market, anyone at VA Linux Systems considered a "VA FreeBSD Systems" branch?
Ok, I'm done for now. Don't wanna press ya, never meant to make VA look bad. I just have questions about the company from a "potential IPO" standpoint. As far as what company I would recommend for someone looking for a quality Linux box, VA is _THE_ top of my list. But when I see "IPO" pop up, and then the topic of the story changes within the first few minutes, the type of questions I have completely change... But... That's buisness.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Gee, at this rate, we can buy a Linux portfolio of funds... I'll just wait until I can "buy Linux" as a mutual fund or something. Maybe a Penguin family of funds?
At this rate, we should have it in a year or two, about when we achieve world domination for the next eon or so.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
VA Feels that the desktop will be a huge part of the business. We love E. So there you go. And we write tools all the time that could use a good interface and I don't have as much time as I'd like to write interfaces anymore. Hence, Mandrake , ras and Michael Jennings.
I have no eta's for you. Sorry.
As far as BSD goes, VA concentrates on Linux only and that won't change any time in the forseeable future. What's funny is a bunch of companies buy our boxes and run bsd on them anyway, which is pretty funny, but they run well so we're happy about it.
And don't worry about the questions, watching slashdot is part of my job and I'll answer whatever I can.
And as far as my job description goes, It's been changed to , get this, "Linux Community Evangelist". Which means, um, well, whatever I like :-)
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
VP, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Why I disagree with you:
1) The hardware business is very low-margin compared to the software business. A software sale takes maybe $3 worth of components to ship (assuming you're ordering CD-ROMS, boxes, and manuals 10,000 at a time). The highest margin you'll see on a typical low-end server is 50%, and even that is pushing it in today's highly competitive server market.
2) Price pressures in the hardware business continue to increase, especially on the low-end, where companies such as EBIZ (with their "LinuxStore" subsidiary of their Windows business) have economies of scale that boggle the mind (due to the fact that they can leverage the volume of their Windows business to drive down the cost of their Linux boxes). This will further cut margins.
3) Competition from the "big names" is coming, and they are better organized, have higher volume, and have higher visibility within Fortune 500 companies. SGI, IBM, Dell, all are names that have announced they're going to be selling Linux hardware. Their outside sales people take IT directors out to lunch every day and are on a first name basis with CEO's. Can VA Linux Systems break into this chummy club, or are these folks going to place orders with the guys they golf with every Saturday, rather than with some virtual unknown that they've never heard of (VA Linux has a great name in the Linux community, but do you seriously think the CEO of Dow Chemical knows who VA Linux is? But I bet he knows who IBM is!).
Don't get me wrong, I wish VA well, but they're going to have to do some really nifty moves to pull off what they're trying to do. They could indeed become the "Next Dell", but in order to do so they're going to have to become as standardized and commoditized as Dell (Dell has engineers on staff, but every other computer company with close to their sales has ten times the engineering staff -- Dell mostly relies on slight modifications to stock "reference" designs created by partners such as Intel and Mylex). They're also going to have to spend a LOT more time thinking about supply chain and manufacturing issues. Dell keeps a tight rein on their supply chain and manufacturing and does limited outsourcing in that area (preferring to outsource design work instead). Dell's pride and joy is their "just in time" manufacturing and delivery system which gets you the computer that you want, with the selection of components that you want, shipped generally within three days of placing the order. Attaining that goal requires a manufacturing genius, not a GUI genius.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Hiya. Does Sam still say he has 40 employees in that little 4 room office suite of his? Folks with glass houses should not throw stones (grin).
Anyhow: I have my own reservations about VA's management, but it's nothing to do with their professionalism and everything to do with where they're coming from (the Apple and Sun "proprietary" worlds rather than from the commodity PC industry). I'm not sure they understand what made Dell so successful (which is not their technology, but, rather, their advanced manufacturing systems, that can get you the machine you want custom-built, tested, and shipped within three days in most cases). But those are my own personal opinions, and are a far cry from the warrantless slander that you just engaged in.
I think if you read a prior posting of mine about the minefields of the personal computing industry and what VA has to do in order to be successful, you'll see that this isn't a matter of "get lots of money from an IPO and you'll be successful." VA is going to need salesmen golfing with CEO's and service teams showing up at customers' sites in order to be successful in the Big Leagues, and you don't put together that sort of organization in an afternoon. Putting together an IPO prior to getting all your ducks in a row is NOT a Good Thing!
Like it or not, folks like Penguin are always going to be small fry. I've been there, remember, albeit on a different coast -- no matter how good your reputation, when the time comes for the big 1,000 computer orders, someone like Penguin is NOT going to get those orders. They're going to get someone who can have field engineers actually come and fix any problems with the machines, they're not going to get machines from some guy with a web site and a 1-800 number.
I wish Sam well, and think he is going to make a very good living from what he is doing -- his proximity to the Silicon Valley alone is enough to insure that, even if his machines weren't so solid (and they are, for the most part -- I have my reservations about some of his parts choices, but those are my own personal opinions about the best way rather than any flaw in his hardware). But let's not confuse the small frey with the big leagues that VA is trying for. VA is trying to build themselves into a company that the Fortune 500 is comfortable ordering a thousand computers at a time from. Will they succeed? I don't know. I think there's enough doubt that I wouldn't put any of my own money into a VA Linux IPO. But there's no denying that this is an order of magnitude different from doing onesies and twosies on a custom basis from a walk-up office suite in San Francisco.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Yes, JFK should have said "Ich bin Berliner" (with no ein) to identify himself as a resident of Berlin in spirit. Instead he did the equivalent of calling himself a hamburger instead of a resident of Hamburg.