Linuxcare Withdraws IPO, Cuts Staff 53
Eupolis writes "Reuters reports that Linuxcare has withdrawn its IPO filings, and is now cutting staff to try to keep from running out of money. " As well as the report from Reuters, News.com has an analysis of the situation as well.
Not a surprise (Score:1)
Then again, if we lived in a world of competent sys admins, you wouldn't see NT anywhere.
Linux IPO's (Score:1)
It all blew up. Red Hat is down under $30, VA Linux is the laughing stock, Corel rose up and is slowly falling (although I thing they'll go back up, slowly but surely).
Linuxcare doesn't want to be part of this laughning statistic, and I understand them.
Comment removed (Score:3)
RMS wins again (Score:3)
It appears that Richard Stallman has won after all. Despite the attempts of a few brave pioneers to actually make money off of "free software" his anti-capitalist shackles have once again seen off the threat of people making a living from doing what it is that they love.
In fact, it appears to me as if the only person who has really benefitted financially from the whole free software movement and its pseudo-socialist ethics is RMS himself. After all, he obviously has the money to spend his whole time railing on about the evils of proprietaty software and the naming of Linux. So really, he wins all round - he is the only person to make money off of his so-called "philosophy" and he gets to look wise and benevolent to all the people he's brainwashed into accepting his vision of the future.
Personally, I think this smacks of hyprocrasy, but I'm sure many people will blindly disagree and flame me for holding this opinion. But then again, this is /., where knee-jerk flamage is accepted as the norm.
Good for them. (Score:3)
LinuxCare is a disappointment (Score:3)
Of all the Linux companies, I am disappointed the most with LinuxCare.
I had originally thought that they have the best business model and would make real money since they are in services and not in selling GPL'd software.
However, it seems that their current dilemma is caused more by lack of execution and bringing in people who did not get what Open Source / Free Software is all about (e.g. Doug Nassaur, ...etc.)
Internally, there has been infighting between pro- (i.e. the founders) and anti- (read: the VC appointed management) Open Source factions.
At least there are lessons to be learnt from all that. I wish the founders the best of luck in the future.
Re:RMS wins again (Score:2)
--
Ian Peters
Whatever happened to.... (Score:2)
Second, what ever become of LinuxOne? All I ever heard about for around 6 months was the evils of LinuxOne and their IPO. Did they have it? Did they fall off the face of the earth?
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Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Lionux Companies Being Hit From All Sides (Score:1)
PS: It took Slashdot long enough to post negative news about Linux companies. Hopefully this will stop all the ACs posting about a conspiracy theory.
No money in Linux? (Score:2)
I used to contract for American Express and some folks there argued with me about Linux, claiming that AMEX couldn't make make money off a free OS. HELLO! AMEX was in the credit card business, and if they based things off a low cost OS that would positively affect their bottom line.
Most companies will never sell an OS. I can count the ones that do on one hand if I have about 20 fingers on that hand. The way to make money off Linux is to create a business, any kind of business, and use Linux to run your business. Operating systems are old old technology now. There's no excuse for a Microsoft or a Sun making billions of dollars off old technology! Obviously those companies get most of their value from new features like journaling filesystems and such, but the inner core operating system is just a commodity now. Get the simple commodity stuff for free, and sell new technology for profit. Everyone benefits because technology advances.
Eventually Linux will have every feature that could possibly be added. It doesn't yet though. Linux is what our computers *should* have been running 15 years ago, so that disqualifies it from being new technology. The fact that I was stuck with DOS until 1993 drives me nuts, because it didn't have to be that way, except for companies overcharging for 1950's technology.
Sorry about the rant. I can predict what the "pundits" are going to say about Linux Care's predicament and it makes me a bit cranky.
Can we expect the same from VA Linux? (Score:1)
Quick impersonation of VA stock...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh
[thud]
Linuxcare IPO (Score:5)
At home Linuxcare IPO would systematically windex every photo he had of his mother (RedHat IPO). He had long since cleaned all the furniture out of his apartment. he didn't need all that glitzy stuff. Besides, he needed the space for his journals. He had kept a journal for every day since he had learned to write. He had a journaling file system so he could pull out any bit of writing at a minutes notice to reference in it. He found his writing to be insightful and enlightening.
"no one else could understand"
"no one else could know what I know"
"I've seen things"
"I understand"
"They hate me for it"
"They're trying to distroy me for my knowledge"
Months went by like that, and soon Linuxcare IPO developed a taste for flesh. It started innocently, killing the rats in his apartment and smearing thier eviscerated flesh over his own naked body. But it wasn't enough, there wasn't enough blood to hide them. He had to keep his secret safe, and blood had powers, and no one could see him behind a mask of blood, and he could be happy, and he could finally achieve what his mother had long prophesised. Yes, it was good, and it was safe and right. Linuxcare IPO knew what he had to do.
The next day at work, people noticed a change in IPO. He had been so withdrawn for so long, but now he was talking to everyone, eyes darting nervously to and fro. Then, about ten minutes before lunch, IPO pulled out the knife he had made himself, and started plunging it into Linuxcare Staff. He would cut Staff alright . . . he would cut him REAL good . . .
A Shocker! (Score:1)
VA linux (Score:2)
The reason the poster called them a laughing stock is that ... and correct me if I'm wrong... VA Linux's stock rose very high ($300+/share), then dropped very low (to about what it is now) all in one day. It was the highest rise and fall in one day.
$60/share is fine, but dropping from $300+ makes swallowing 60 (especially if you bought in around the high point) very painful.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not a surprise (Score:1)
Re:Good for them. (Score:1)
VA sold the shares at the IPO price. Whether their price goes up $1 or $100 doesn't really matter.
Re:Linux != business But Unix and BSD have made $ (Score:1)
BSD was the backbone Sun built its business on. Back in the days when OpenSource was 'source code you got from comp.sources.unix.'
And BSDi has thrived and survived selling BSD and BSD support.
So others have built businesses on Unix...so if there *IS* a problem with "linux companies" it is not a problem with Unix.
Re:VA linux (Score:3)
Actually this isn't quite true. VA Linux stock didn't fall in one day. It closed at around $300 on the IPO day and has the record for being the largest rise in one day (approximately 900 to a 1000 percent from $30). The stock then dropped daily for months until it got to $26 a few weeks ago and now it's on the upswing. The reason it's called a laughing stock is because it is now a poster boy for everything that is wrong with today's stock market (overvaluation, banks bidding prices up unscrupolously, day traders, etc). For more info read their charts [yahoo.com] and check out the Yahoo message board [yahoo.com] to see what the investor sentiment is like.
The real world hits Linux (Score:1)
If a company like LinuxCare, without the development expenditures of say Redhat (which still maintains that it will see profits one day from support fees) can't make it, then it would follow that companies with a higher overhead (like Redhat) turning out unprofitable products (open source) are also doomed to failure.
I love linux, but without commercial support it will not be accepted in most corporate environments or the desktop.
I want to beleive... show me the money.
Re:RMS wins again (Score:1)
Service? (Score:2)
Linuxcare, unfortunately, approached support in the least imaginative way; selling support to end-users (or vendors), just as the proprietary software vendors and support companies had been doing. But it turns out that Linux users don't really need that kind of support. This is a different market.
There ARE companies approaching the "support" issue in imaginative ways. Cygnus/Red Hat, Lineo, Transmeta, etc. sell "support" by providing custom development and specialized implementations. That's probably the approach that will work best.
Long Term (Score:3)
Wtf?! Does everyone around here have the attention span of a gerbil? Ohmygod, (insert favorite Linux company name) is not making gazillions of $$$, so IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!
To the folks at Linuxcare, I wish you the best, hope all goes well.
To /.ers, expect successes and failures for Linux companies. Name me a company that doesn't go through its problems. This industry is no different.
IBM used to be The Enemy. Today they are more friend than foe. In the early 80s, IBM had something like 400,000 people working for them. Their staffing at one point dropped to half of that. Point is, change will happen.
Final point to consider is that this is only the beginning of the commercial side of the Linux revolution. There will be more of the proverbial "bumps in the road". Yet, if you look where things are today, overall, things look pretty darned good. Imho.
first_post
Live it. Linux.
The Ridiculous Idea Of Selling A Service (Score:2)
Whether or not DotComCompanyX has a good business model or not is another matter. But never doubt that people will pay for support and advice when it matters to them.
Re:RMS wins again (Score:1)
The real world _doesn't_ hit Linux (Score:1)
As for corporate acceptance, IBM and SGI have done far, far more for corporate acceptance than Linuxcare ever could have accomplished on their own.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see them succeed. But Linuxcare "falling" on their IPO doesn't do what you're attributing it.
Re:Long Term (Score:1)
An answer to the trolls.. (Score:2)
First, a bit of background, I work in the IT industry (obviously) but I have migrated to a job that does not really give me much time to program, I am mainly a big hovering brain, spitting out ideas and thoughts, however all of the lessons that I have learned (and am learning) from the open source movement, are ideas that I incorporate into any endeavor in which I am a part of. At the companies that I have been involved, we have used free software extensively, and we have built great products upon the foundations laid down by Linux, RMS, and the bunch.
However, I was doing this (along with a LOT of other people) way before the Linux craze hit! It isn't just in the last year that apache has become the "leading web server" it isn't just in the last year that BIND has become the "backbone of DNS on the internet." These products, this code, this art, was great and around way before VC money, and artificially inflated IPO money was around to fund it!
I can not help but have this feeling of "SO WHAT" towards the rises and falls of the open source INDUSTRY... the movement will always be here, as long as I can type, I plan on using open source software over closed source, I plan on submitting bug reports to open source software, and I plan on releasing (no matter how pathetic lately) any utilites, applications, ideas, etc... that I have in a manner which can be utilized by other programmers, by other developers, by other artists...
If people make money off of open source, WONDERFUL! more power to them! I am very much for people making money... if however 3 years from now the market fizzles and we realize that quite frankly, open source software did not become the cash cow that microsoft enjoyed in the 80's and early 90's... well, so be it! I have learned my lessons, so have most of you! The ideas have been spread, the concepts have been tought, the seeds have been planted... I am using a FREE o/s with a free web browser to post this comment... we might lose the battles of economic success, but the war of freedom, in my mind, has been won.
Re:RMS wins again (Score:5)
Actually, I am benefitting financially from the free software movement.
I own several computers, and use them for full-fledged desktop/develpment/number-cruncher systems. My total investment in software is $0.00 US (except for my oldest system, which I was fool enough to buy with Windows pre-installed).
The big mistake the many pundits, trolls, and honest-to-goodness nice quys are making is thinking that the only use for software is selling it.
Not so. The primary use for software is using it. The primary economic use for software is using it to run your business more cheaply and efficiently.
Once this is recognized, you immediately see that millions of persons are "benefitting financially from the whole free software movement".
If you want to sell software or play the stock market, then no, I do not recommend free software for you. If on the other hand you just want to get work done, then free software is the only way to go, IMO.
ps - The predicted (hoped for?) flames are omitted. Insert your own if needed.
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Re:RMS wins again (Score:1)
the ultra-conservative racist bigoted right wing in the United States
The only bigotry I see here is coming from you, AC.
Oh, wait, I forgot... it isn't "hate speech" when liberals do it. My mistake.
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Making Money With Linux Support (Score:2)
1. Companies / People running Linux generally have a higher calaber of support people internally compared with another company running running an NT server for example.
This means that you have to have very very excellent people. To keep them you have to pay them a good salary. Which in turns means you have to charge more.. A viscious cycle unfortunatly. Is there any solution to this?
2. How hard is it to take your computer to a place and get them to "fix" your win9x box? Pretty easy and pretty cheap. Now if you do not like the service you get for whatever reason you go 1 block and try someone else. With Linux support who do you go to? Where do you find them? What happens when you finally find that support and you are unhappy with it? You eventually give up? Any solutions?
3. Linux is rather robust, rather stable. Which translates to less support. Unlike an NT4 box where it needs constant TLC to keep it running happily. Do we even want to contemplate a solution here? I don't
4. There are a lot of very very excellent tools / help avenues on the net for walk throughs configuration, problem solving etc etc etc. How long would it take you to find a rather decent walk through on how to setup a video card? Chances are not long. Take NT4 for an example where do you go for a walk through to setup the same card? Generally you call up a place and get them to do it because there is not one. Again causing less support calls etc. Once again do we want a solution here?
I think what it generally comes down to is you have to be a very professional outfit to succeed. No mickymousing around. You must even from time to time dress the techies up in a shirt and tie (have fun, and if you manage to get a photo journal of that put it online).
My 2 bytes.
Oh my goodness... (Score:1)
You know, if Slashdot wasn't on CyberPatrol's black list before... it is now.
Thank you. It's about damn time we saw some serrated, edgy humour here again. It's too bad that's an AC post, really, you'd be on an elevator to Nirvana.
Ack noo please noo (Score:1)
I hope not...
I strongly disagree with you but this is posably the most rational and well thought out commintary of what a lot of people have thought of RMS for a very long time.
What RMS dosen't get is the image he has cast off. To those unfamilure with open source (managers, politicians, quite a few ITs etc) and even a few who are the first thing they'll notice is how RMS carrys himself.
He comes off one part religous zellot and one part communist. I've taken strong exeption to some of his rants.
On the other hand he is up againts some of the most thickheaded arrogent pinheads. It's probably not an easy thing for him to see when he crosses the line as one needs a telescope to see the opponents while standing on that line.
Today people are foolling themselfs by living on simple notions. Market droids have been aware of this mindset for years and have exploited it every chance they got.
"You get what you pay for" How often have you looked at price alone as a mesure of quality? Far to many people do. The greatest marketting trick is to rise a price a little just to give the illusion of quality.
(Note to Microsoft this only works when the product is allready high in quality)
The truth? There are people looking for "the deal" such people shall allways exist. Some people ignore quality issues or don't look at the quality of the discount item. That dose not produce a cost savings as often the item will not do the job.
Here is the battle ground....
On the open source side people instinctively looking for "The deal", people wanting to "give back" and some who see busness opratunitys.
On the closed source side. People reactivly looking for "Quality" in a price tag. People wanting the shiny things and some who want to sell software.
RMS has a lot to contend with...
So he often blows his top and says something he shouldn't have. Not that he is wrong but that he isn't very diplomatic about it.
ESR and others take more time out to give a reply. They are however standing side by side with RMS.
Think about this. HAMs, BBSes, and public domain software. Free services have existed for a very long time.
To spite what people have said many times over and over again the idea of free software was not new in the 1980s. What RMS preposed was protecting the rights of existing free software develupers. No grandbreaking ideas or socal re-engenearing. Just an effort to protect the socal climate that allready existed.
The real groundbreaking ideas came from ESR who preposed ways of making a proffit from open source.
That changed everything....
Make no mistake... busnesses have used public domain software as a means of cutting costs for a very long time.
Some have used FidoNet software as a means of delivering e-mail (Not Internet e-mail.. just office to office e-mail... internal memos that sort of thing).
On occasion public domain has been pacaged with commertal software pacages and no credit given to the public domain softwares author.
Such confusion is generated when this happends that the real author gets accused of stealing.
One of RMSes rants that I object to is a good example of how extream RMS can come off and the reason I object to it is a good example of what RMS is up against.
In that rant he complainns that software theft should be called "illegal copying" and not "piracy" becouse piracy gives the image of blood thirsty pirats.
The sillyness of the imagry aside companys do not use the term piracy prefering instead RMSes suggested term "Illegal copying" ohh but they use the short hand "Copying"...
Rather than trying to paint anyone who steals software as an evil blood thursty crimminal (as they do but in other ways) they would have you believe copying ANY software is illegal. That it is ALL commertal and public domain is a myth.
As for painting software theafs as blood thirsty crimminals. Being fair any company paints criminal acts against itself as evil and blood thirsty.
The same issue in a slightly diffrent form exists with Napster....
The music industry proclames the only function of Napster is to volate copyrights. A very easy argument to make. I mean all artists are signned up with recording contracts right?
There arn't any bands playing for beers right?
No hobby bands exist right?
Hmm?
And when can I get a Hemos or Potter CD?
Where do I go for "All over my chin" albems?
("All over my chin" is a hobby band that records in a hotell room using a tape deck)
There will allways be the executive who refuses to believe there is someone out there making intelectual property for fun.
Programmers who make software for free, music artists who do it for fun, techs who build WHOLE COMPUTER SYSTEMS and give away the design for the fun of it.
Who dose that?
Hobbyists.. hackers.. ammature music artists.. People who make good money doing something they also enjoy doing. People who don't want the hassles that come with going pro.
Yes RMS comes off extream. Believe me thats nothing compaired to the lunacy of the philosophy of "Proffit is the only motivation"...
Yes it's true... some people do not have a price...
Re:An answer to the trolls.. (Score:1)
However, when
People seem to ignore the fact that for "World domination" the support of commercial companies by the Wall Street types will be needed. - I would even question if OSS projects like GNU office applications would have developers if not for the ego trip of being part of Something Big a la "world domination".
Wall St. types are easily swayed, follow like sheep and THEIR DECISIONS ARE OFTEN BASED ON ERRONEOUS PERCEPTIONS. Hence, a few nervous investors tend to have a snowball effect, and perceptions are often more important than reality.
_If_ LinuxCare totally closes shop (and as it has no assets, who'ld buy it?), and _If_ *Wall street* sees this as a lack of a market for Linux Support, - all Linux stocks will suffer. _If_ this cause one of the prominent Wall street "Linux" companies to fold or pull out of the Linux market, or even if it causes the disappearance of more private but prominent linux companies to go under because VC funding dries up, -- How long do you think it will take before app developers decide to "cut their losses" and discontinue support for important business apps like Notes for Linux?
I'm not sure if I'm being overly pessimistic or just making sure I'm not burying my head in the sand while truly hoping for "world domination".
I have no idea how this will effect Wall Street, maybe today it will go unnoticed but be noticed if/when they go under, but I'm sure that at some point we're going to have to find a way to respond to Wall Street or kiss our hopes and dreams for Linux to be more than just Yet Another Un*x good bye.
quote time (Score:1)
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
AMERICANS NEED NEVER FEAR THEIR GOVERNMENT BECAUSE OF THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING ARMED, WHICH THE AMERICANS POSSESS OVER THE PEOPLE OF ALMOST EVERY OTHER NATION. - James Madison
http://www.gate.net/~brubaker/quotes.html
Yeah, sure (Score:1)
Linux is still for the most part the domain of the DIY oriented tech savvy, but as that changes the need for real live tech support will grow also. I'm not saying that this means that LinuxCare's buisiness model is a sound one, just that there is (or at least, will be) a market for Linux tech support.
spreer
They are to expensive! (Score:1)
The cost of our phone support varies on the type of service you receive. If we are able
to walk you through it over the phone, we charge $150/hour with a half hour minimum and then we bill in 15 minute increments. Most of our calls are finished within an hour, but the engineer
will be able to quote you a better time when they learn more about your situation. If we need to dial into your network, or do research or work off-line, we charge $200/hour and with a half hour
minimum and then we bill in 15 minute increments.
This is outrageous to a home user, espically when you consider that RHL with phone support for about month is about $100 with a box of software.
Granted, YellowDog and other some other linux-pmac distros (like LinuxPPC) offer no to slow service with poor software (like LinuxPPC2000 kernel source mising the
Ex-Linuxcare staff (Score:4)
One of my Linuxcare friends had a job interview this morning that I helped set up. If you're one of the LC people looking, I now have even more contacts. Feel free to email me at deirdre@deirdre.net [mailto] and I'll pass along what I know.
While the prognosis for everyone there is good, the early birds will have more choices.
If you're one of the ex-Linuxcare staff, I'm also asking the companies to show up at the next BALUG [balug.org] meeting as well. And, if you're a company that I missed somehow, just show up. :)
_Deirdre
Re:Linuxcare IPO (Score:1)
nice job
Sorry to say this, but... (Score:1)
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Wait a minute (Score:1)
Oh, wait. It already is. Never mind.
Damn! This would've made a great short. (Score:1)
predictable.... (Score:1)
Re:VA linux (Score:1)
Perhaps I don't appreciate the irony in your comment, but even if you were trying to be ironic saying something like this makes you a contender for the "stating the bleeding obvious" award. No one ever plans to buy a stock at a "high point", not ipo, not ever, sometimes it just works out that way.
Re:Oh my goodness... (Score:1)
Solution: Banner Ads + Slashdoting (Score:1)
who is the linux-stock panic really benefitting? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Traditional Paid for 3rd party support is dead. (Score:1)
We flourished, supplying support, upgrades, patches and solutions to everyone. In 1996 we had to relocate as we could no longer fit in our office. My department was the major money earner for the company, if revenue for software updates was included.
Then a year or so later everything started to go wrong. Customers failed to renew contracts, or would use us only to provide the software themselves. I would sometimes go for a day without talking to a real customer. New contracts were becoming difficult to sell. Everyone was using the internet resources to find their help.
All we were able to sell from then one were support contracts to places without their own IT departments. Simple calls which would have taken 5 minutes to solve went on for weeks. We even ended up running the helpdesk for one organisation 200 miles away. I spent some time out of the office doing on site work - when I returned all but two of my co-workers had resigned.
The company has now closed this part of its buisness and moved into other fields. I am now working elsewhere, testing communications protocols.
Re:Wait a minute (Score:1)
Perpetual betaware: there's over 2500 packages in Debian alone which are stable release versions. Ok, many of these merely support something else but that still leaves hundreds.
Hard-to-use: GDE and Knome are truly obvious counterexamples.
Half-finished: you're on to something here. Almost all software is *always* unfinished. That's because user's needs expand with the program's functionality. Software is not an artifact it is a process. Propriatory software companies sometimes have a hard time admitting this.
Re:No (Score:1)
Sorry, that's just funny, posting that to slashdot. Get a Debian CD and have a look. Anyway, the normal meaning of "killer app" is "program which increases the market for computers". The World Wide Web has been the biggest killer app in history. Both HTML and Apache have been cornerstones of this revolution.
Free software predates the kernel, dear. And there's an order of magnitude more developers of free applications out there than kernel developers. Anyway there are a lot of people out there doing the "boring" work, and businesses often find it in their interests to fill in any missing "boring" bits from a program they want to use, which then sorts it for everybody else.
Re:Wait a minute (Score:1)
If a programmer is any good, they will be good at debugging and documenting and designing and all sorts of nifty things that are not coding. Programmers are valuable for their talent and skill. Code is one thing you can get out of programmers, but it's not necessarily the most important. IMHO it's over-emphasized because it's relatively easy to understand.
I believe that open source software and Linux in particular have been in the public eye since some time in 1995. Tell me, in the last five years, have there been fewer jobs for programmers? Is the work generally available for programmers now less interesting or lucrative than it was before? How many people do you know who've been put out of work by the open source movement?
Furrfu,
Re:Wait a minute (Score:1)