Red Hat/Corel Takeover Rumors

zDooder writes "According to Yahoo Finance, rumors are flying on Wall Street about RedHat buying out Corel. " Corel's stock has been all over the place as a result (Discloser:I own some Corel stock). It's definitely an interesting match. Corel's distribution is based on Debian, and Word Perfect is a decidedly closed source product. I'm not putting a lot of weight in this one, but I've heard stranger rumors so who knows.

Comments

Re:I hope not

[SpinyNorman]

If this is true, then it looks as if Redhat's strategy is the archetypal `buy up lots of small companies to boost the CEO's ego'.

I disagree. Cygnus made sense since they're the gcc maintainers and the kernel is definitely written in GNU C, not ANSI C! They also may help RedHat support embedded Linux. Given their (IMO) massively inflated stock price, any stock based aquisition of slightly more tangiable assets makes sense, really! The allure of Corel could be the applications and distribution network, with the shareholder bonus of eliminating a potential Linux stock market distraction.

I hope it isn't true. Any ideas as to what started the rumour?

Even if it might make some sense, I tend to think this is probably just an unfounded rumour. Rather than causing the Corel stock price run-up, it might well be a based in people looking for a reason for the run-up, which is more likely that they got caught up in RHAT's slipstream!

Bloody 'ell.

[Ian Schmidt]

"What if they declare Sendmail and GCC to be some RHPL"?

Then those projects will fork from the last GPL version, likely with funding from SuSE/TurboLinux/VA Linux/other distros. This has already happened with SSH, and there's no reason it couldn't for other stuff too.

Redhat still has the best record of any non-Debian distro on open source. *Every* component of a Redhat distro that Redhat develops themselves is GPL. Not any funny weird licence, real live RMS-tested-mother-approved GPL. I'll take a record like that over "but they COULD become evil" nonsense any day.

"Why don't they just stick to providing services"

Because big companies (and I work at one so I know how they think) will feel better about paying Redhat for service contracts if they know RH is associated with at least some key developer(s) of those programs. Let's face it, if you experience a kernel problem and you have a service contract with Redhat, they can have top kernel gurus like Alan Cox and Ingo Molnar take a look at it for you. That's powerful.

Compare this with the Linux service contracts being offered by companies like SCO. Not only do they not have any Linux developers, their main business is a competing product! Given the choice between them and Redhat I know which company's service contract wouldn't make me fear losing my job.

I'll wait to see

[pos]

I doubt they will buy Corel but it makes me think of a good thing coming from all of the Red Hoopla lately. Perhaps one of the bast ways to get lots of GPL code is simply to buy it. I know that perhaps WP isn't the best code in the world but i am sure that someone could benefit from at least seeing it. If you view code writing to be largely like a tree growing (code branching and such), then a GPL lisence takes over that whole branch. A purchase of code and a release under the GPL effectively makes the whole branch GPL. I tend to view the coding world as more linear than your average tree (rope-like perhaps) with new strands of code being woven in and out of the application. But, GPL code can't be woven in without a GPL lisence.

Now I wonder, what if a large linux driven company could purchase/write a lot of code and GPL it. What would the computer industry look like/how would it work in an all/mostly GPL world. would there be more computer jobs available? less?

I have my ideas but I would like to know what the rest of /. thinks too.

perhaps it would start another "red" scare in the traditional business world ;)

-pos


The truth is more important than the facts.

Maybe not a bad thing.

[Cacophony]

If RedHat buys Corel we should get Open Source WordPerfect Suite. This could really kill MS Office. A good well known office suite that's free! Why would anyone buy MS Office for some $500 or so.

I have one question then. Which distribution do you keep or do you distribute both? Two distrubutions from one company sounds dumb to me.

Another good thing... RH and Corel and have been two of the biggest helps to get linux to the masses, putting there heads together couldn't be a bad thing.

-Al-

Re:Maybe not a bad thing.

[SoftwareJanitor]

What feature do you want in StarOffice or WordPerfect suite that isn't there? Frankly for probably 95% of the people I know, they are more than feature packed enough. I keep hearing complaints that StarOffice or WordPerfect aren't full featured enough, but I never hear anyone give any details as to what they think is missing. MS-Office is just plain bloated overkill for most people, and too expensive to boot ($169 for the upgrade version of MS-Office versus $99 for WordPerfect Suite outright was the advertised CompUSA price in the paper this weekend).

SGI

[mattdm]

Not a rumor, more of a suggestion -- Red Hat should buy SGI, not Corel. It'd fit better with the operating-system-technology thing. SGI has a lot of cool stuff (even if they haven't been doing so well as a company lately) and they're already putting a lot into Linux. Red Hat buying them would complete the transformation.

--

Why all the discussion about what you'd expect?

[DragonHawk]

Every time a Red Hat corporate takeover rumor comes along, it stirs up this big discussion about Red Hat, Linux, commercialism, etc., etc. Why?

I can see why people might debate the pros and cons of this or that company as a prospective choice, but I don't see why the fact that Red Hat is looking at potential purchaces is such a hot discussion.

This is what companies do. They aim to make money, generally by providing quality products and services. One excellent way to do that is to buy companies which mesh well with your own. The resulting whole is often greater then the sum of its parts.

Red Hat is a company. Way back from the start, one of their slogans has been "Red Hat -- The Commercial Linux People". Since their IPO, they've had wads of cash, so now is the time to do it. It makes perfect sense.

I cannot see why this is so often debated. Cause for discussion would be if Red Hat just sat there pumping out CDs without doing anything new.

/SOAPBOX

Re:Corel Takeover - And Bob's Your Uncle!

[Zoltar]

Ha! The voice of reason finally shines through.

My broker calls this the old "Pump and dump." People start rumors to inflate the stock then unload after it peaks. The internet has been a great tool for that. Remember the big run on Iomega a few years ago. The whole motley fool crowd had fun with that and a bunch of people lost money; while a bunch of the early adopters made a ton. Be very very carefull when you hear rumors like this with no foudation.

National Semiconductor

[bafful]

Just a quick note on the side:
Did you know that Red Hat's market capitalization is twice that of National Semiconductor?

Corel Takeover - And Bob's Your Uncle!

[ggoebel]

Corel Takeover rumours are a dime a dozen.

I've owned Corel stock from time to time, and if I've learned one thing, it is that Corel has a talent for using rumours, false promises, shady accounting, and insider trading to manipulate the value of their stock.

But it is hard to cover up what Corel really is. -Namely, a lackluster under-performing Software Development Company who is trying to go head to head with Microsoft, and is both financially and technologically on the ropes.

If it isn't rumours that Novell, IBM, or Sun is going to buy Corel, then it is vaporware promises of WordPerfect Office for Java. Bottom line: Read the financial statements, not the press releases.

Linux is good for Corel, but is Corel good for Linux?

Selling WordPerfect and Office Suites for Linux is a good market direction for Corel to be going. It'll make them some good money. -Especially since their products aren't doing to well in the WinTel market, better to reposition for a less competive one (Linux). But how long will it last?

Why a Corel Linux Distribution?

Does Corel really have what it takes to become a major player in Linux Distributions? Is it technically superior? Maybe on a couple points. Is it more user-friendly? Maybe, maybe not. Is it likely to stay ahead of the curve for long? No. Linux distributions require staying power. The ability to consistently deliver a more value-added distribution than the competitors.

We all benefit for Corel's effort to improve Linux... I hope that they do become a major player, but I just don't think they've got it in them. I hope I get to eat my words.

What value would Corel add to RedHat?

Little to none. Unless Redhat is looking to put the rather expensive WordPerfect(TM) feather in their hat, they little to gain from an aquisition of Corel. Gnome and KDE are already churning out Office Suites of their own. And I'll bet given a year or two, those Office Suites will be technically superior and more user friendly than anything Corel will have to offer.