Red Hat Listed Among 50 Top Tech Companies 169
Kelvin Ekston writes " Red Hat is listed among ZDNet Asia's 50 Top Tech companies 2006. It is also one of the fastest growing companies with 210.4% year on year income growth over 4 years.
While almost all Linux companies grapple with the perennial question of how they can make money through software subscriptions and services rather than selling packaged boxes, Red Hat finally managed to improve credibly and match the hype with substance and show the way to do business with Linux. That's the way to go!"
No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Cracking the top 50 isn't surprising, or terribly newsworthy.
That said, it's more proof that Linux® is on the radar screen, which is nice.
Re:Easy task (Score:1, Insightful)
And I was going to say ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Some days it seems like some folks put them just a step above Microsoft.
Re:What a suprise..... (Score:1, Insightful)
I for one am going to work for Tata Consultancy Services. You cannot go wrong when your services are consulted by Tata's. When you go through one of their consultations, you too will like their services. Maybe one of their services is to help the porn industry decide whether to use HD-DVD or Blu-Ray!
Ethics (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not skeptical of when a person does this for free and just relases the source. That's cool. When a company has to generate money by basically, fixing bugs and/or some customization, I think you need to be skeptical.
Just my paranoid thoughts on it I guess.
Re:er, 36% growth? (Score:1, Insightful)
Red Hat who? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm going to get modded flamebait, but their business model is identical to Microsoft's. The only way to get Red Hat Linux is to buy it from them. If you aren't a paying customer, you mean zero to them.
Sure it's possible to build a system that is mostly the same at no cost, but you aren't running Red Hat and they won't give you any support if you run into problems.
Re:Apple is the future, though. RHAT remains niche (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I have used Linux as my primary desktop at home for six years. In that time, it has improved more than any other desktop solution in terms of look and feel, but it was adequate from a productivity perspective even in 1999. Both Gnome and KDE have similarly improved.
What holds back Linux on the desktop is simply fear of change and fear of a lack of interoperability with MS products. These issues are being delt with quickly and I expect that within a short time both issues will be mitigated sufficiently to allow larger corporations to move quickly to Linux with only a bit more effort than upgrading Windows. With any luck we will be close to that before Vista really starts to become commonplace.
Re:Apple is the future, though. RHAT remains niche (Score:5, Insightful)
Troll.
Red hat do not compete in the desktop space [zdnet.co.uk]. Nice try.
As the future of Unix, Apple is also making strong claims on the server and super computer markets. Apples success with the Virginia Tech supercomputer is proof that Apple is opening up a lead in the top-end of the market.
Troll
You mean the way Linux "rules" Supercomputers [forbes.com] with an estimated 60% of the top 500?
There seems to be an emerging consensus in Slashdot land that Apple and OS X is the future of Unix and the sole legitmate claimaint to the king of the desktop.
*sighs* Troll... modded up to +3 by apple fanboys - how predictable.
Re:So why stock down (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good stuff -- (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
It all depends on your investment goals, naturally, but doing this as you say is a great way to see your money stagnate. You need to find a company that has a great idea that is undervalued in your opinion. For instance, Microsoft has had many, many years of profitability, but their stock has done nothing interesting in the last year+. I would bet there are a lot of geeks on this board who feel that RedHat is undervalued because the business market doesn't yet understand the power of Linux (especially as a server), and RedHat stands to profit a lot from any growth in that segment. If you were to buy RedHat now, and they became that solid, proven profit-making machine you're looking for in the next 5-10 years, you'll easily double your money. The only way to make money is if you take some risk.
Again, I want to stress that all of this is based on personal opinion (as you said at the end of your post, 'personally'), and I have no idea if RedHat's stock is going to go up or down. To everybody that reads this--do not make any investment or trading decisions based on this post; if you do you're foolish. This is not an offer to buy or sell any security, and you should obviously talk to any investment professional before you make any trading decisions (yada, yada).
Re:And I was going to say ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, but one must keep in mind that this says far more about the character and maturity of Linux enthusiasts on Slashdot than it does about the RedHat distro.
Re:No surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that a tech company with 10 years of profitability could just as easily be on their way out. There are no guarantees either way, but some people might rather invest in an up-and-commer then a tech company gone stale.
Re:Ethics (Score:3, Insightful)
Red Hat releases
When a company has to generate money by basically, fixing bugs and/or some customization, I think you need to be skeptical
Red Hat generates money by being "red hat", having support, etc. It's not the quality of the software what matters for support, what matters is the fact that if you find a bug redhat will fix it. Once redhat has fixed it, they've no interest in keeping the fix only for them. From what I've seen, they're not interested in having to maintain thousand of extra patches and they try to avoid it as hard as possible.
Redhat also sells because of their customization:
Re:Redhat Did a lot to screw Linux credability too (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And I was going to say ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is because Redhat are trying to run a business, not a charity.