On Thu, 2003-01-16 at 23:16, Lyvim Xaphir wrote: > On Thu, 2003-01-16 at 07:03, Adam Williamson wrote: > > > > > and Red Hat both make the same decision and don't appear to be filing > > > > for bankruptcy protection... > > > > > > Redhat have millions left over from a sucessful IPO, and SuSE have recently > > > recived a shitload of cash from IBM (to stop them from going under), so the > > > comparison is hardly fair. > > > > Fair? What does fair have to do with anything? Red Hat were able to make > > a successful IPO, MandrakeSoft wanted to and didn't. That is, Red Hat > > made a successful financial move, MandrakeSoft didn't. IBM give money to > > SuSE in the belief that it'll ultimately benefit IBM. Apparently, no > > large companies believe that the survival of MandrakeSoft is in their > > long-term interest. > > -- > > adamw >
The comparison with Redhat's IPO is unfair. They were the first one and only one to gain a huge benefit from it. There was a Netscape craze too when they did their IPO. The history has been that the first one generally gets most of the benefits. Caldera had a mediocre IPO and by the time Mandrakesoft was ready the conditions had changed drastically. So Redhat has so much more money than they know what to do with. At first they went and bought out a lot of companies and other relatively poor decisions, but they had so much money that it didn't matter and the money made their extravagent decisions easier to overcome. Mandrake did not have that advantage, and they also made far less costly mistakes but did not have the huge bank account to back them. As far as IBM bailing out SUSE, that was also another first. They were the first of the majors to approach bankruptcy, I would hedge bets that if Mandrakesoft was the first approaching Bankruptcy, then IBM may well have bailed out Mandrake and SUSE would be declaring Chapter 11 style bankruptcy now. It was IBM's interest that Linux appear strong (especially at that time when they were first starting to promote linux) since so much of their strategy depended on that and that strategy was still in the process of development. Their linux strategy is now more established at this time so they are less vulnerable also. -- SI Reasoning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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