OpenIPO and Lindows 158
An anonymous reader writes "Lindows is using bankers WRHambrecht and their OpenIPO process when they go public. The lower end of the pricing range will net them more than 50MM. But OpenIPO is designed to let ANYONE bid on IPO shares. If Linux can keep investor's attention and Google announces their own IPO, they could raise much more which could have impact on desktop Linux. Same CEO had near perfect timing raising 300MM with MP3.com IPO." OpenIPO is the same route Andover.net took back in the day.
Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2)
It's about time someone came up with a tail-recursive acronymic name! There are entirely too many head-recursive names already.
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2)
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2, Funny)
Lindows - Lindows Is Not Deemed Of Windows' Standards.
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2)
Tofkal (Tofkal is the OS Formally Known As Lindows)?
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if they released quality software instead of getting publicity over lawsuits then they might be an asset to Linux. Until then - they are a bunch of charlatans and thieves.
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:2, Funny)
You'd also sell an extra 2 copies to all the LISP programmers out there who would think it's the "true Linux".
Re:Lindows? I thought it was not Linspire (Score:3, Interesting)
The OS defaults to running as root, and you CANNOT run CNR without being root. Not to mention it's set up with insecure Windows Networking compatibility to start with. Really! The preconfigured networking is set with a lot of insecure ports open.
This IPO needs to fail and fail quickly. No one read the article apparently. Spending $6.7 million to get $63,000 in sales is um - BAD BUSINESS.
Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:5, Funny)
And we all know how well that worked out.
Hot Potato and Musical Chairs. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hot Potato and Musical Chairs. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hot Potato and Musical Chairs. (Score:2)
Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Same CEO had near perfect timing raising 300MM with MP3.com"
hmmm, what's the current value of MP3.com stock?
Re:Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying it wasn't a bad idea for them to follow a business model that was bound to piss off the major labels and get themselves sued into oblivion?
Re:Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:2)
I have news for you..... (Score:2)
Re:I have news for you..... (Score:3, Insightful)
What you seem to be missing is that it's not at all like controlling 90% of some natural resource. There's plenty of great non-RIAA music, go listen to that instead.
Re:Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:2, Insightful)
And no one would think of sueing Lindows.
Re:Oh, I get it! Buy tech stocks and get rich... (Score:2)
In fact, I was a big fan of My.MP3.com -- that was the service that got them into so much trouble (not the 'regular' MP3.com catalog). For those who don't rememeber, My.MP3.com provided a service where you could put a CD into your drive, it would then get the unique ID from that CD, and then -- if that CD was already in the My.MP3.com -- provided you with immediate streaming access to
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:2)
On the flip side, how did RHAT get up to $25.. it seems like it was at like $5 not so long ago. Mini-bubble in progress?
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:2)
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:2)
This is another stock I'm kicking myself for not shorting. I mean, really.... It didn't get any easier than LNUX. But, while Lindows won't be *quite* such an easy target, I'm sure that many many smart people will make a mint shorting it. I can't wait for all of the Linux fanatics to drive it through the roof the first day!!
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:3, Informative)
Linux fanatics? Lindows? You don't pay much attention to the group you like tweaking, do you?
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:2)
Good point. I can't wait for all of the techie-wannabes-who-know-the-"Linux"-buzzword types to drive it through the roof the first day!!
Re:Surprised by Wealth! ... slightly off topic end (Score:2)
Oh and just for a little editorial comment: Many people say the stock market is just like going to Vegas, I say, look at the amount of people that make money in the market. Look at the people that mak
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:2)
-a
Re:Surprised by Wealth! Then by Total Loss! (Score:2)
Broken Link (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.openipo.com/ [openipo.com]
Desktop Realitites (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that it will have to more closely mirror M$'s interface than you think to be accepted, perceived improvements included.
If Longhorn came out with an OSX-like GUI, it would work, but any other OS has to ingratiate itself slowly.
Not that 2008 for Longhorn isn't slow, but you get the point.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope so too, since I'm going to be shorting, and this company is going to be nothing but a big lawsuit target for all kinds of copyright & trademark infringements. Hell, leave the name "Lindows", make a "Start" button, and put a big MS logo on the desktop.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:2, Funny)
If by "refining the GUI" you mean hiring sales and marketing, and padding the salaries of executives, you're perfectly correct.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:5, Insightful)
A linux desktop should look like Windows not only because its what people are used to, but its what most people have proven to be able to use.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh? And when did they do this research, and what came out of it?
Did they do this research before Windows 3.1? Did they do this research before WIndows 95? Or did they do this before Windows XP, and create the new interface that everyone truely hates?
If Microsoft really has been spending lots of money on research, they've been getting ripped off by somebody.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:2)
Because their alternatives have been....?
And you make a huge leap in coming up with the statement "proven to be able to use". How come the SAME issues always come up for newbies? Sure, they get used to clicking on Start for everything, but their initial inclination is not to do so.
Why not have Administration, Applications, System, Internet buttons at the botto
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:5, Insightful)
Even Microsoft faced a backlash when they screwed with the UI in Windows XP, despite the fact that it's more intuitive. After users finally got used to the setup in NT/95/98/ME/2K, everything got flipped on its head. Fortunately, they are smart, and left a classic view in.
For a Linux distro with a small userbase, trying to get Windows converts is an uphill battle if the UI looks different than Windows. Maybe not for you or I, but the technically inclined are a minority section of the Windows userbase. There is a lesson here, I think.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:2)
All that extra bloated UNintuitive crap goes by by.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:5, Insightful)
You hear him. Mods, get at it!
Seriously though, screw MS-Windows functionality. In Outlook it sometimes freezes for a minute if I make a quick mouse movement and click on a menu. It feels like it's pondering which button I really wanted to click on, almost as though the click event happened in two different widgets. And after a minute of what I can only believe is highly intelligent AI computations, it finally determines that I wanted to click on "View" instead of the printer icon.
Now the quality of the GUI is arguable. It's widely known, and while that's not all it has going for itself, I feel it's the bigest reason why people continue to use new iterations of MS products. If the computer illiterate has to do anything other than their repetitious task, they won't know what to do (i mean, the structure of menus within menus leading to dialog windows isn't obvious). But this mostly comes down to the fact that the typical users don't ever read the documentation or bother with the help system.
So what's my point... I guess that it is this. We do need a consistent Look and Feel in Linux, that is atleast superficially similar to other popular GUI's, but in functionality (average response time..etc) it should surpass those other GUI's. Arguably we have this already through "themes", though maybe not completely (GTK, QT, TK, Swing, etc all look different).
What I fear is that a lot of that IPO money will probably end up in marketting, causing Lindows to be the first Linux introduction to many people. I don't know a lot about Lindows but I doubt it is up to large scale scrutiny. A bad distro + MS-FUD could do some big damage to public perception of Linux.
Re:Desktop Realitites (Score:3, Interesting)
Um - 20% is going right back into Robertson's pocket, and then the IPO firm is getting a big chunk. So no, they won't do that. This is a legal Ponzi scheme and nothing else. Read the filing. They will run out of money in 24 months. This is a dot bomb waiting to happen.
Oh, yeah... (Score:3, Funny)
Sales of disco records increased 700% through 1978! If this trend continues...AAAAAYYYYYY!
(No, I'm not sufficiently motivated to go to SNPP and get the quote right.)
Great opportunity to make $$$ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Great opportunity to make $$$ (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Great opportunity to make $$$ (Score:2)
Re:Great opportunity to make $$$ (Score:2)
Want to help turn Lindows into a burning pile of rubbish? Buy a Lindows PC from Wal-Mart and then return it. They'll be reduced to smoking ash as Wal-Mart dumps them.
shorting IPO stocks (Score:4, Informative)
Motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect a big reason people use the current IPO process is not because they feel it's the best process for raising the maximum revenue, but because it raises acceptable amounts of revenue while letting people connected to the IPO profit by purchasing underpriced shares at launch. For this reason IPO shares are usually handed out as perks to people connected with either the company itself or their financial firm.
Scamming people legally (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like legal way to scam/cash in on hype and an overenthusiastic general public.
Benjamin Graham (Warren Buffets "idol") used to say that IPO stands for "It's Probably Overpriced".
Factor that in with an irrational and overenthusiastic general public lacking investment skills thinking all IPO:s are winners (they usually forget the last bubble in good times) and you have a table set for even more inflated IPO:s and ludicrous business models going public.
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Dude... That's all that stocks are in the first place. The have no intrinsic value. They are worth only what people think they are worth, and that is usually due to pure hype.
A company could be doing incredibly well, and have a good and solid business plan, and their stocks could be worth a fraction what the most popular company's stock are worth (with n
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Educate me then.
Let's say some rumor has scared people away from Microsoft, and the stock price drops to practically nothing. You have 100 shares... How would you be able to get more than the market price for them? If you have no buyers, the stock has no value.
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
a) If enough of the shareholders got together they could always vote to liquidate it for at least the value of its cash holdings (some 6 billion dollars).
b) The only way such a fall is likely is if MS's growth prospects suddenly hit zero or worse. In thi
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
That is a valid answer, but doesn't really detract from my point. Saying stock has no value was a bit over-stating things on my part, but it's actual value is nominal.
That's been exactly my point from the beginning. Stocks are a pyramid scheme. Money moves around, all to get a piece o
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Anything like OpenIPO is going to be another battering ram against the floodgate of IPO management. I'm not saying don't let people get involved if they want it; I'm just saying that if you do advocate such a thing, don't be all shocked and awed by the crash that MUST follow.
Re:Scamming people legally (Score:2)
Re:People spending their own money legally (Score:2)
Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you raise venture capital, you sell your business to pimps, who in turn whore it out to the world. Thats what VCs do. If they had a legitimate business model, they wouldn't need to rely on VCs nearly as much.
Re:Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:2)
Re:Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:2)
Re:Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:2)
I'll grant you that most VCs can't be trusted, but it's not as simple as ju
White Devil!!! (Score:2)
Re:Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:2)
Re:Micheal has learned from experience. (Score:2)
Lindows IPO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lindows IPO (Score:4, Interesting)
Unlike all the Windows users who like to "pirate" their applications. The workings of the scene itself may not be about free stuff. But they certainly feed a rather large mass of people who like getting stuff for free. This, of course, doesn't mean that there are no paying customers for Windows or Windows applications.
Enter Linux. Sure - people like free stuff. But that doesn't mean all Linux users won't pay for something. In every environment I've worked in for the last 9 years, the organization I worked for could afford anything they want to include Windows and all commercial Unix products. They ran all these environments... and Linux. They would even pay for Linux support and applications that ran on Linux. And today my Organization pays for RedHat Enterprise.
As for me... my own workstation at home is Debian Linux. My laptop is Mandrake - from a boxed set I purchased at the local Best Buy. I also own several commercial games that I purchased either at a local store or online. I prefer Open Source applications but will pay a fee for software when there is sufficient reason too. And I do the same at work.
Sure - Lindows has a hell of a rough road in front of them. Anybody trying to launch a desktop OS in to this market does. And fighting dominant desktop environments such as wintel and MacOS is tough enough without also competing against other Linux vendors. But whether Linux users will pay is not the issue. They will. They do.
But will they pay for Lindows?
I'll invest... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'll invest... (Score:4, Funny)
Haha! When I started off here I noticed my 401k balance was 0. They almost fooled me into making payments toward it as well but my wily arse saw through their plot!
Personally, I only invest in "Credit Cards". The intrest rate is astronomical... look into it.
I seriously want to know! (Score:5, Insightful)
This functionality was never above or beyond any other Linux distribution... so it's just another distro now... right or wrong? What else does it offer besides the click and play?
Re:I seriously want to know! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I seriously want to know! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I seriously want to know! (Score:2)
Or bought Xandros. Or Lycoris. Or Mandrake. Or anything else. It's just a scam, and Robertson will be on to something else.
Re:I seriously want to know! (Score:2)
We also don't see Rhapsody shipping from Apple, Chrome shipping from Microsoft, or any number of other projects announced with great fanfare but never released.
If you required companies to actually ship what (and when) they say they're going to ship, Microsoft would probably have the most to lose.
Re:I seriously want to know! (Score:4, Informative)
What the click and play thing is for is other applications which don't come preinstalled, and unlike Microsoft's recent experiment with subscriptions, you're not required to maintain a subscription to continue to use the products you've acquired.
Since it's a Debian-based distribution, you can probably just use apt-get if you don't want to subscribe to their service.
Re:I seriously want to know! (Score:2)
Actually updates DO require a subscription. And the default install forces you to run as root. They have removed apt-get and replaced with CNR. You're better off buying Xandros.
Details? (Score:3, Insightful)
But, when you report about IPOs it is usually a good idea to offer a bit more information about the company and its impending IPO. The link to the SEC document doesn't offer any of this information.
How about a bit of information about the company and its present financials? When is the IPO scheduled to occur? I hope for their sake it is nothing like Andover.
Re:Details? (Score:2)
They spend $6.7 million in 2002 to get sales of $63,000!!!! OH MY GOODNESS they are absolute idiots! That's more than $100 spent for every dollar they take in!
And they announced a HUGE amount of vaporware. The Tablet PC - never came out even though the photos were there. Photoshop anyone? They ru
Grasping at straws (Score:3, Interesting)
Its kind of sad how every linux story is always "this will probably maybe most definately finally be the tipping point for desktop linux." Lindows, or whatever their name of the week is, having an IPO for a product that will probably crap out in the near future, certainly won't help linux on the desktop as it will make investors more leary of linux.
Re:Grasping at straws (Score:2)
I'm reading: which could have impact on desktop Linux and struggling to see how you transmogrified that into: this will probably maybe most definately finally be the tipping point for desktop linux?
Given past generosity/support from Mr Lindows, presumably more $$$$ for Lin---s will result in more projects like Nvu [nvu.com]: I don't think we can really expect - or claim we were promised - more than that.
50 millimeters!?!? (Score:4, Funny)
Why can't the editors be a little sympathetic to lamers like me in expanding acronyms!?!
the only reason (Score:2)
The capital markets are open for everyone to use, given you have a solid business model. If don't, then you go to "alternative" capital markets, like OpenIPO or junk bonds.
Yea, there are success stories that arise from these alternative financings, but they are rare.
Re:Who is raising what 50 MM for? 300MM? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Who is raising what 50 MM for? 300MM? (Score:5, Funny)
My guess is they're going to go IPO and dump all the money into MegaMillions [megamillions.com] in order to thwart off SCO's attack.
Re:Who is raising what 50 MM for? 300MM? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who is raising what 50 MM for? 300MM? (Score:2)
I've seen Mn, and just M of course, but MM is a new one to me.
Methinks I see a typo.
Re:Millimeter capital? (Score:2)
You're right that "M" as a modifier stands for "mega", not "milli". But "metre"/"meter" is abbreviated as m (lowercase). "M" as a unit stands for "moles".
So what we're talking about with "50MM" is 50 megamoles (50*Avogadro's number) of dollars, or in excess of $3.01*10^25! That's over $30 septillion (US nomenclature), or 30 Yottadollars.
Re:Overview (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, Lindows (not linspire) is going IPO. They've said that they are going to keep using the Lindows name for their company, and the Linspire name only as a name for their software products in some countries.
Re:WTF Unit of currency is an MM? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WTF Unit of currency is an MM? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WTF Unit of currency is an MM? (Score:2)
Re:WTF Unit of currency is an MM? (Score:2)
Well, look at linuxxxforum.com [linuxxxforum.com] and that must mean linu1000forum - or else pornographic. Read my sig for more on what this insidious company does.
Re:WTF Unit of currency is an MM? (Score:2, Interesting)
Neat, in any case.. me being an American living under the worst unit system on the planet hehe.. I'm surprised we don't use a monetary system that has currency denominations that are neither divisible by each other nor another common divisor.
Oddly enough, Alabama is one of the few states that puts KM
Millimeter. (Score:2)
Re:asset dumping (Score:2)