TurboLinux/LinuxCare Confirmed 38
A reader writes "This isn't a rumor anymore. A Linuxcare spokesperson confirmed that talks are underway." So, the earlier posting is correct - Turbolinux would be acquiring LinuxCare in a pretty standard stock for stock transfer.
Stock Swap (Score:4)
TurboLinuxGuy: You're ripping me off. How about 5 million shares of my stock valued at $0.00 per share, in exchange for 10 million shares of your stock, valued at $0.00 per share.
LinuxCareGuy: You've got a deal. [to himself] He doesn't know I'm planning a 3:1 stock split before we trade. [wicked laughter].
Re:So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:1)
A company that is able to provide a product AND service on that product is a much stronger company than the sum of two companies providing those things separately, generally.
Granted, this is a lot smaller consolidation than the AOL/Time-Warner thing, but it is consolidation.
Consolidation of two minor companies is what happened here. It's likely that they would have been run out of business by Redhat (the real champ in the commercial Linux distro camp) had they not pooled their resources.
I'm not sure that it's a healthy trend. The open market is supposed to create competition, not conglomerations.
This is not the creation of some powerhouse monopoly, you know. There is still competition in this market (Redhat and SuSE).
Dancin Santa
Re:Oh puh-lease.. (Score:1)
Yeah, like LinuxMall and Ebiz - whoops, no more LinuxMall staff...
Sometimes, when a business starts to fail, it should just be allowed to fail. Ever heard of a Pyhrric (sp?) victory? The employees that built a company deserve to enjoy the success of a company -- if the management of a company can only make money by selling their staff down the river they should go down with the ship too.
Re:Oh puh-lease.. (Score:2)
Mergers aren't nearly that simple. Although they can bring good value to a company by allowing them to selectively combine the best elements of both, the actual work behind is extremely tough. Merging two corporate cultures is extremely difficult, especially when you start laying off the redundant employees. Morale and understanding of the company mission can drop precipitiously if this isn't done right. And it's easy to misgauge what to keep and what to discard from each company.
I can't find any studies to cite, but I've heard that mergers and eventual shareholder value have about a 50/50 record. I can personally attest to one case of a negative consolidation: I was a regular freelancer at an independent newspaper that was bought by a corporate chain. Upper management waffled on making any decisive moves with their new acquisition for over a whole year, which stuck everyone in this organizational limbo. Nobody felt like they could commit to anything at the company 'cause they didn't know if they'd be all fired or promoted the next day. As a result of the malaise, the entire editorial management had left within a year's time.
And, sure, stock prices often go up when mergers are announced. But most of the people in the stock market -- just like most people in general -- are sheep. I thought everybody on Slashdot already knew that.
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:2)
Yes. I've installed Debian over the internet at least 5 times
It's next to impossible!
Far from it, it's fairly simple. All you have to manually download are the installation floppies (5 floppy images), and the installer automatically downloads whatever else it needs. The Debian documentation unfortunately doesn't make this convenient fact very obvious, and you have my deepest sympathy if you were trying to download the packages one-by-one from the web pages at packages.debian.org. (I tried this at one time, before I knew better).
Or, if you want to download a CD image, head to http://cdimage.debian.org/ [debian.org].
You have to buy it!
Even that's not so bad. As another poster mentioned, you can buy a Debian 3 CD set from cheapbytes for $5.99 + $5 shipping. Unfortunately this will leave you with Debian 2.2, which is very stable, but contains rather old versions of everything.
Be happy, getting Linux is easier than it's ever been! And the existence of non-corporate distributions like Debian will guarentee that it's always continues to be accessable, no matter what happens in the marketplace.
--
Not bad news (Score:2)
If we want to get OSS software accepted by the general public (which means we can devote even more time to it), we do need some kind of commercial backing otherwise companies will not use it as much and neither will the average user.
Watch all those companies which are using linux now: most of them are redhat, some suse and the ones who have a clue run debian.
Companies want support.
They want someone to blaim for when something goes wrong and fixes it 24/7. So then you need a service-supplier which is strong and will not go out of business within the year. And it seemed that both were loosing money so it might actually be a Good Thing (TM)
Because where should there customers go when the go out of business? To the debian [debian.org] user group? They will (most likely) respond with: Please get a decent distribution first, because we dont do RPM.
Let's face it (another time): companies have to make money, for their shareholders and for their employees. When they lay off their employees because of not enough revenue then we might loose a few linux-users, because M$-programming still gives you fastermoney.
Bolke.
Can't combine the two... (Score:1)
Product and service... (Score:1)
...and if you have lots of money, you get nifty legal muscles to flex.
More seriously - isn't it weird that this is the bulk of Microsoft's argument in the antitrust trial? Interesting that when you read it in a different context all the M$ bashers love it, but if this were said in conjunction with a Microsoft story, especially intended positively, it'd be regarded as flamebait from a loser.
This'll probably count as flamebait too... Just an observation on our geek culture.
Re:Paying for Linux is not so bad (Score:1)
Paying for Linux is not so bad (Score:2)
Re:So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:1)
Re:Can't combine the two... (Score:1)
Re:So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:1)
1) Get a simple economics text
2) Read about economies of scale
3) Slap forhead making "D'oh" sound.
Re:Not bad news (Score:1)
Re:So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:2)
Simply put, even a monopolist will never charge more than what the market will bear, because doing so would be stupid -- the decrease in sales would do more damage than the increase in margin would. Thus, even huge multinational corporations will never charge so much for their products that in doing so they damage the economy.
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:1)
Oh puh-lease.. (Score:2)
FIRST off, one of the BEST things that a company losing money can do is merge with another company. It adds more capital, and more impact, and more sales potential, and usually leads to increased efficiency by elimination of extra positions that arent needed under the new structure.
Before you start replying saying I am wrong, go look at a few businesses that have gone through mergers. There is a reason that stocks raise on the news. It almost always brings more value to a company.
Now, onto the second set of posts, those looking for the falling sky..
One, just because one company merges with another (not to mention that only TurboLinux had a distro!), doesnt mean that there are less distros. Geez, go take a look at lwn's listing of active distros sometime..
Even if they both did, so what!? Its TWO distros in a field of HUNDREDS.
It means nothing in and of itself. Both companies had to tight of a vision, ie, one was a distro (not an easy way to make money), and one was a service provider.
Neither will really be successful on its own, IMHO.
So, I would like to congratulate both on their PENDING POSSIBLE attempt at merger.
Here is to hoping that they pull it off well.
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:1)
Re:So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:1)
Claim your namespace.
Cash, please (Score:1)
If I were selling my high-tech company to another, these days I'd be wanting at least some cold, hard, cash out of the deal. A lot of people have ended up broke after their new stock tanked.
Re:Oh puh-lease.. (Score:1)
In other words: gets people fired and increases unemployment.
Great going, capitalist pig.
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:1)
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:4)
If you live on some other states, you might have to pick up 40 cans, but that's still cheap.
If you live in a state where there is no deposit on empties, you might have to resort to bank robbery or panhandling. I suspect that it's really not that much of a problem though. I mean how often do we see people on the curb holding signs that say "I won't lie to you, I need five dollars for a pack of cigarettes and a Debian CD."
The past comes back! (Score:2)
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:1)
Re:Oh puh-lease.. (Score:1)
Re:Paying for Linux is not so bad (Score:1)
Apple doesn't seem to have more than about 5% of the desktop market - probably a lot of 'fanatics' as you'd say. But Apple is one of the most centralized companies out there, imo. So, which is it? Linux needs centralization, or decentralization?
Re:Paying for Linux is not so bad (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't sound so promising... (Score:1)
New Name proposal (Score:1)
TurboCare - boring, unimaginative, and does not relate to the company
TurboLinuxCare - that is way too long. New companies need a short snappy name
I'd like to give my suggestion: Linux^2 -- not only does it follow the trends of SmithKLine Beecham or NeXT by using punctuation marks in the tradename, it accurately reflects both the name of the former 2 companies, AND the sole trade!
Here it comes (Score:4)
Doesn't sound so promising... (Score:3)
Linuxcare filed for an IPO but postponed it amid layoffs, the departure of chief executive Fernand Sarrat, and other problems. To keep the company running, Linuxcare closed a $30 million round of funding in August.
So we have two money-hemorraging Linux companies mergine to create a larger money-hemorraging Linux company. Sounds like quite the loser combination to me.
I imagine that it this stage of the game, though, neither company has much choice in potential mates.
Dancin Santa
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:1)
So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:1)
Will it be "Turbo Linux Care"?
Will it be "Linux Turbo Care"?
Or "Care Linux Turbo"?
How about "Turbo Care Linux"?
Re:So what'll the name of the new company be? (Score:2)
The real question should be, why did these companies merge? I mean, yes, one provides a service whereas the other was primarily a distrobution provider, but together are they a lot stronger than they are alone?
I'm not sure all this consolidation of the market lately is a good thing. Granted, this is a lot smaller consolidation than the AOL/Time-Warner thing, but it is consolidation. Whatever happened to the idea that competition stimulates the economy and creates multiple cheap alternatives? It seems like the government and the business world are working together to create an economic down-slump by creating huge multi-national corporations that will charge such extreme rates for everything that no one will be able to afford it. Of course in their minds (the government officials) it probably translates to, "We will get lots of money up-front from the special interests, plus we will collect more in taxes later! WHOOHOO!"
As I said, I realize this isn't a major consolidation, but it does tend to point out a rather major trend. And I'm not sure that it's a healthy trend. The open market is supposed to create competition, not conglomerations.
But, in the end, I guess the big money people know best. It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out.
Re:Why... (Score:1)
On the other hand, a new story will be viewed by anyone that is interested. Seems justified to me.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Bye-bye free Linux (Score:1)