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Red Hat IPO Story at Yahoo
malacai sent us another article in a long stream about
Red Hat's Impending IPO. This one talks a bit about Be's IPO,
as well as assorted other stuff related to it. It's a good piece (and one
that for a change is about the actual IPO and its implications and
not the E*Trade/SEC fiasco)
Who is "they"? I'd like to see a citation, if you have one. I've looked, and I haven't managed to find out anything definite about Be's prospects. There are plenty of generalized statements that they stink, yes, but I've seen precious few figures.
If my memory serves, they were burning about $ 25 million a year in cash. The Be IPO gave them $ 30 million. So they have about a year to prove themselves.
Their current strategy is to get themselves into set-top box applications. I don't think it's going to bear fruit this Christmas, but it might next. If they have something promising by about this time next year, I think they could sell additional stock and keep going.
I'm certainly rooting for them (and using their product right now).
D
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How long after you made them aware of the glitch in your account did they fix it?
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In what way are they competing with Dell?
I thought Dell was installing Red Hat on some of their machines!
Obviously they're competing with Microsoft, and that's enough to worry any company. But Dell? Gasp.
D
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Disclaimer: I'm not the person who moderated it down. I currently have no moderation points, anyway.
To me, his post *does* look like a standard first post. Not redundant, but offtopic; for starters, it was on Yahoo news, not ZDNet, and didn't really say anything, but was just the usual "Oh, the media is crappy" and obviously didn't read the article. Well, not obviously, but most likely didn't. If I had moderated it, though, I'd have done 'off-topic.'
That's just me, though.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
...I mean wEIrd and ZDnet and all those other ones that make out the bulk of articles on /. /.ers are preaching to the choir. We rant and rave and get all hyped, but rarely, rarely, rarely does my father's copy of Newsweek mention Linux. Haven't seen BE in it. Maybe because Microsoft and Apple and HP pour buttloads into fullpage and multipage glossie ads in the mags. I was ticked when a week or so ago there was steve jobs in the middle of Newsweek plugging his ibook, and somehow it was news instead of marketing. (imagine a 3 page story, in Newsweek, Time, or USNews on say, one of Compaq's notebooks, or even better, something from VA. We'd say, gee, a computer. woopee doo. Apple, specifically Steve Jobs, has always been a media favorite IMHO.)
/., where I could post "is BE really as good as Be INc. says it is?" or "I had to give up linux because Netscape 4.0x really sucks, is it worth my time to dl 4.6?" without feeling like i was off topic or not important enough to waste a whole story. I also think certain threads could just be ongoing if there was a bit more structure to moderation. (for example: Perhaps old but really good comments could be archived in the "which distro is best" ongoing thread and so there is some continuity and permanence to what people put so much though into saying. Or maybe just an archive of all the highest scored posts??)
/. is important and cool and great. We have a good thing going here. (thanks cmdrtaco/hemos/andover et al!!)
I spend a couple hours a day reading stuff here, but sometimes it seems like
It all comes back to mindshare (not any company by that name but the socio-psychological idea). HP sells "The Unstoppable NT" and we groan. We all know that the world just isn't right and that we have the solutions (whatever they may be). So we shout at eachother across the internet, sometimes flaming, sometimes being polite and careful. But we are a fringe. Broad and varied and multinational but still a fringe.
I like it. I come back here every day. I can almost always find something interesting to read. I enjoy and learn from many of the comments. I'd like it if there were some other things to do here (maybe a more newbie-friendly ask
Anyway. I think I'm hella off topic and wasting bandwidth but maybe i won't be moderated down.
"I want peace on earth and good will toward men." "We're the U.S. government. We don't do that sort of thing!!"
It was on Yahoo news, not ZDNet
Read it again; it was written by Larry Barrett of ZDNet.
I did read the article, and while it's more intelligently written than most, it still contains no new information or even any insight.
I didn't like it.
The future profit stream of Amazon is no more a sure thing than the future profitability of Red Hat. Red Hat has made money in the past, Amazon has yet to turn a profit at all. So ask yourself this, do you have more faith in something that has proven that it can make money, or something that hasn't proven that it can make a dime?
--Kit
Former Inmate, VA Linux Sanitarium
I think Netscape has become a little more stable with 4.5, but I feel the pain of hapless Netscape users (including myself). In all honesty I don't think Internet Explorer is much better - I've seen both of them crash and burn badly. The main problem is the god-awful fonts. :-(
:-(. However, I think this is changing in the newer versions of GoBe Productive, the native Be office suite.
BeOS: Is it what Be says it is? Yes. It really is fast, it really is stable, it really is slick. And application support is getting pretty nice - if you're willing to pay from $ 20-200 for applications, you can get some very nice ones. This is cheaper than Windows, but admittedly more expensive than Linux.
The Be web browser is a good demonstration of both the strengths and weaknesses of the OS. It renders pages attratively, new windows pop up in under a second, the user interface is smooth and crisp, if one window is hanging waiting for a sluggish web site, you can pop up a new window and immediately go to another one. This is all fantastic; you'll love it.
But you'll hate it because it supports very minimal JavaScript and no Java. Nowadays a lot of web sites rely on those languages, so there's a surprising amount of content you simply won't be able to get to.
That's not a bad metaphor for the entire OS - what it does, it does better than anything else out there, but there are some exasperating gaps. The biggest gaps are in driver support - a lot of devices you take for granted in the Windows or even Linux world don't exist in Be. The other major gap is that I don't know of any utility for viewing or editing Microsoft Word or Excel files. Hate them as you may, there are times when they really need to be decoded
If $70 isn't enormous money to you, I think it's well worth handing to Jean-Louise. It's not totally there yet, but it's getting close, and it has the most appealing personality of any other PC OS.
Hope that helps.
D
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