Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Mandriva Businesses

Mandrakesoft To IPO 58

Posted by Hemos from the twist-and-turns-of-the-financial-wind dept.
Cpyder writes "LinuxFrench reports that Mandrakesoft (home of Mandrake Linux) are going public. Good luck to them!" The article is in French - use the fish for an...interesting...translation. Or try out GPLTrans.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Mandrakesoft To IPO More

Mandrakesoft To IPO

Comments Filter:

  • Frogies (Score:1)

    by deno ( 814 )
    Hey, we aren't all froggies out there! Though I have nothing against eating a dosen or two of our green friends from time to time. (Unlike most of the real "Froggies" i know).

    Ever since I arived to paris, I had this love-hate relationship: On one hand, I can't stand French bourocracy, baricades in front of metro, and constant strikes, but on the other hand Frenchs really know how to do some things:

    • Good food
    • Good wine
    • Fast trains
    • Cool airplains
    • Best linux distribution
    • Have I already mentioned food?.-))
    Nice girls too, but do not tell my wife. :-)
  • I will cry the day, which Babelfish climbs down. It is the way with distance the more Dr.

    All phrase with Babelfish would have to be necessary time to make to work one some times before making a starter shaft of Slashdot. Perhaps the trolls it begins still to be amusing.
  • Ok I see it starting already, Mandrake better than RedHat and vice versa. Does "better" really matter? If it did, would MicroSoft have the foothold they do? RedHat has positioned itself pretty good (Dell, Compaq etc. anyone), as well as making a name for itself. When most people (i.e. pointy hairs) think of Linux, they think of RedHat.

    On the flipside however, Large Companies are (unlike some of the users in the VA thread) NOT in the business of building their own computers, and grabbing any ol' distribution. They buy Servers from well established companies with support contracts. So they go something like the Dell 2450 route, with RedHat installed, and everything supported.

    Comments that state that RedHat would only have the server market... hello, why would they want to bother with anything else? Why fistfight with like 50+ distro's for pennies, when you can sell $25k+ server support contracts to large companies.

    This is NOT to say one is better than the other, it's just to point out that RedHat is in a better position both Market and Financial. Mandrake as a company has hinted at financial trouble in the past, and needs to generate more funding. Hence, IPO. Is this a good way? I don't think so, but with the Market the way it is, and VC's holding onto their dollars so tight that the Washington Screeches, it may be Mandrake's only path to more funding.

    And for the "flame" record: I have both Mandrake and RedHat installed (but I use Sol2.7 most of the time;)
  • Mandrake is definately better than Red Hat for the desktop. It's enhancement utilities (such as DrakFont) makes it MUCH more pleasurable to use for everyday use on my desktop

    This is by no means a Troll, I have been using Mandrake since 6.x and continuously find myself switching back to Red Hat. Mandrake is bleeding edge and all, but it has a real QA issues that absolutely suck. I couldn't believe 8.0 was released, especially with all the problems that plagued the beta. Stuff just stops working in Mandrake, in both KDE and GNOME, and it was beginning to drive me insane. The RH stuff is older, but it works better. While Mandrake does have some things that make it a better 'desktop experience', there is nothing I can do in Mandrake that I can't do in RH. Mdk just makes it easier, and that's fine because that's their market anyway.

    Now, DrakFont is definately awesome, and I applaud them for continuing to push the envelope. MandrakeFreq is an excellent idea, as well as cooker, but I will continue to use RH until I actually find a stable version of Mandrake.

    Regardless, the developers are kick ass guys and have done tons for the community and have kept their stuff GPL, so regardless of what you think of their distro, they definately get a Good Luck(tm) from me ....
  • I agree with most of you... mandrake has a wonderful installation, and great configurability. It's gui tools are the best in the linux world.

    The thing is.... it's still meaningless because the whole package isn't there yet. You've got to have applications... ie, MS Office.... and all those other wonderful little programs we all use at work. Despite linux being a better OS... and Mandrake having a great gui.... you can't get people to abandon all of their applications.
  • Maybe this isn't funny because Linux is married with 2 kids? Thank you Jon Katz for reaffirming the geek stereotype.
  • They are also trading in different markets. Mandrake is not floating on the NASDAQ, they're floating on the "Marché Libre" of EuroNext [euronext.com] - the Pan-European market (Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam).
  • are obviously on rent from a prop department of a hollywood studio. Oh wait, that's Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
  • I would mod you up if you weren't blatantly rippin off this [bbspot.com] bbspot story.

    Why is there no "-1, Ripoff?"
  • Mandrake (which I haven't used since 7.1) is looking to be a really good distro--supports DrakFont, has a nifty installer, and Cooker is using .deb instead of EvilRPM.

    What the hell are you talking about mr troll... Cooker uses RPM, just like the rest of the distro. And urpmi is getting to be quite similar to apt-get, the only difference being that debian still has a better system of servers and package archives.

    "I'll take the red pill, no, blue. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH........"

  • My experience => get in car - drive to Wal Mart - get box off shelf - pay for box - drive home. Yup, pretty tough.
  • So why would someone want to invest money in Mandrake when the alternatives look alot snappier? They'd either be desperate, and going out of business hoping some quick investors would be clueless to invest in them so they could continue, or as arrogant as people depict the French.

    Maybe because Mandrake is the most user-friendly distro made. I started out with Slakware around 2.0.36, went to RedHat 6.0 when that machine died, and now I'm a Mandrake devotee, especially since 8.0. Everything comes set up beautifully...reiserfs, xfree4, kde2, cups, etc etc, and mandrake cooker stays on top of new releases (the main reason I killed progeny after a coupla hours). I could opt to run slak and spend all my time setting things up, installing software, etc...but honestly I don't have that kind of time anymore.

    I don't know, I think Mandrake has a decent chance, seeing as how they arguably have the nicest install and the most pleasant end-user experience of any linux distro. If I weren't flat broke I'd be in on it too:)

  • man I hate living in the south...operating system marriages aren't even allowed here!
  • nahh, I just hate the french for destroying canada, I'm cool with everone else :)
  • they haven't filed with the SEC yet. so i don't by it. i know a lot of companies that say they are going to go public.
    regardless, i wish them luck
  • How about FTP'ing them, just like you do your precious Deb packages?

    FTP? Who FTP's their software? apt-get install

    Mandrake (which I haven't used since 7.1) is looking to be a really good distro--supports DrakFont, has a nifty installer, and Cooker is using .deb instead of EvilRPM. BTW, don't use the ximian packages ... took me a month to get those horridly broken software-versionximian.deb pacakages off this machine.

  • From the short info quoted on the page:
    Unfortunately, this option can only be offered to contributors located in the European Union due to regulatory issues. We are not allowed to solicit foreign individual investors without filing multiple papers. In particular, the SEC (US market regulators) assumes that US citizens do not have sufficient knowledge to invest in IPOs of European markets and therefore imposes complicated rules for them, so numerous US contributors won't be offered to invest in this 10% part. We will probably do something just after the IPO for people who live outside the European Union.
  • When I read a while back that Mandrake had some problems and having been using their distro on my thinkpad (and quite happy with it), I decided to do order their CD. That was about 2-3 weeks ago. I paid $10 for delivery. A week passed and nothing happened. I emailed them and requested some info. It appears that even if I live in CA and there HQ in the States is 10 miles away from my mailing address, the order has to go to France and then get dispatched here. So as for today, still nothing in the mail. These CDs are way over due and even at with a 56K modem, one could get the binaries before the package. I don't have to tell you that it's the last time that I order from these guys. So much for being nice and helpful. If they treat their customers in the similar fashion, then what's the use. BTW, I ordered in the past RH 6.2 and FreeBSD (with automatic renewal.) They have been dropping in the mail as expected. Now, that's what I call service. -- PPA
  • learn how to code a link!
    ---------------------------
  • I can see the obviousness of your comment, "Americans, the most pigheaded and self-centered people in the world!"
  • Well, here comes another attempt for a company who is losing money to see if they can attract investors to float on by. They should have gone non profit. With investors on board they can't go non profit and will likely file for chapter11 if they are not sucessfull.

    I will stick with a more financially stable distro like redhat or suse or go with debian. Debian will never go under because they are non corporate. If I had a permantly fast connection where I can auto-update I would pick debian.

    Unfornately I am stuck with redhat and all the latest versions of gnome and kde only have have rpm's for the latest or last 2 versions of mandrake or redhat or suse. If your behind you need to buy again and again. Kind of like a subscription. Hmmmm

  • Mandrake is the only Linux vendor, in my opinion, that is seriously attempting to address the usability and interface problems in Linux. An IPO would give them much needed cash to hire interface designers, usability people, and documentation writers, as well as to market their soft. to a wider group of people.

    As such, best of luck to them. It can only increase the usability of Linux.

  • Uuhhh.. am I getting extremely good at reading French or was that article really in English? Or maybe someone thought all languages look like English? Anyway, I hope Mandrake can get into the black uicker than Red Hat did. It would be an amazing boost to open source software & prove Micro$oft to be a bit uninformed about what makes a business successful.
  • Did you read the document??? They don't enter a US market, they go public on a pan-European stock market (Euronext)
  • Mandrake is actually not at all a Red Hat clone. All people using Mandrake whom I know like Mandrake but don't like Red Hat at all. I think Mandrakesoft future is brighter than Red Hat. In particular, think about what they have accomplished in two years... They became nearly #1 distro while they were totally unknown three years ago... I think Mandrakesoft has understood everything: let Linux be usable by everybody, open everything (code, documentation), do quality products, communicate much, run a low-cost company (remember there are as many guys in Mandrakesoft currectly as Red Hat 3 years ago!). So my bet is for Mandrake Linux/Mandrakesoft - the Microsoft challenger with the best potential I ever seen.
  • Please understand that they go public on a *European* market. Economy in Europe is extremely dynamical compared to USA, as well as stock markets. Also, Europe will support any potentially big competitors against Microsoft and all the American high-tech companies. Europe has already succedeed do do that with Airbus vs. Boing. Also Mandrakesoft has a big community of users who are likely to buy a part of their loved company. Also, what if AOL sings a deal with Mandrakesoft to provide Linux easy distro instead of dealing with Microsoft???
  • Everything is available on http://www.linuxfrench.net/article.php?sid=546&mod e=thread&order=0 [linuxfrench.net]

    Here is the summary (Slashdot "lameness" filters didn't allow me to post the entire text!):

    1. Why are we conducting an IPO?
    2. What market did we choose to enter?
    3. When will the IPO happen?
    4. What will be the amount raised and the valuation?
    5. How will the stock offering be distributed?

  • I think they were just trying to be facetious.
  • mandrake files chapter 11! ah the joys of the tech economy....
    ____
    Blood, guts, guns, cuts;
    Knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts.
  • Well, here's a chance for everyone who didn't get in on the RedHat IPO and didn't make heaps of money in the first week to try again. :)

    Well, not really... anyone who invests these days are taking some pretty decent risks with the market the way it is. OTOH, at the bottom, there's no place for the market to go but up, right??

    Hopefully, since i'm down about 2 grand since last year.

  • I think that it is three kids now and Tove (his wife)is supposed to be a real knockout.
  • The distribution of the stock is likely to be:

    - 30% allocated as an open offering to the market. Any individual can subscribe to this offering.

    - 60% allocated to large investors. We need to secure this part fast; if you know of any
    funds that can invest quickly, or any rich people, please let us know.

    - 10% allocated to contributors. MandrakeSoft's success is largely due to our community of
    users and contributors; therefore, we will present our main contributors a special offer. A
    contributor is someone who has contributed in various way to help the development of
    MandrakeSoft on a voluntary basis. These people will be offered the option to purchase
    stock as privileged investors.

    Is it just me, or is this something you just don't expect to see in a press release? Comes across as kind of desperate, I think...
  • This is sort of an assinine idea of Compaq considering the following factors. Right now the economy is down, and people are scared of dumping money into tech stocks. IBM just turned it's a profit again after years of losses, and their profits were miniscule. IBM will also crush them, and considering Compaq is a IBM spinoff, more people will take IBM more serious than its clone.

    Could be from an IT-newspaper 10 or 15 years ago.

    Roland

  • as arrogant as people depict the French. (oui!)

    No-one, of course, would ever think of Americans as being arrogant. I bet you've never even been to France or, for that matter, outside of your bedroom very often.

  • Yeah, yeah, thank you for the opinion of Linux circa 1997. You forgot to say kernel recompiles and communism though.

    Seriously though, do you think that all corporate IT is Windows? Since when?

  • You might want to try scrolling past the first paragraph. Looks almost like English to me, what do you think?

  • Hopefully it'll make it BIG, but can sustain at least some of it, unlike some Linux companies we know. You know the ones, the ones that yell at their Cisco techs.
    But seriously, I doubt Mandrake's IPO will make it big though, the IPO market is dead. Take a look at Kraft, that had big hopes, considering they had all the shit to back their IPO up, unlike a unfair employer whose stock is so bad its gonna be delisted.
    Its enough for a stable start though, and that can be considered a good thing, considering when you see all the things that the bomb coms went through.
  • Try and english->spanish translation on any page you know well in either language...

    It turns it into spanglish!

    An example from my page:

    this página probablemente breaks many, si no lo más, of las reglas i've heard bandied about para correcto html el uso.

    This could be hours of fun.

    - A.P.

    --

  • should we take the selfless route and donate through Paypal, or do we take the mildly selfish route and buy a few shares of it?

    Or option 3) spend 40 bucks for the cd set at compusa (like I did). Sure buying at a MegaStore(tm) is sometimes a sucky experience but demonstrating 'consumer demand' for linux can't be all that bad.

  • Unfornately I am stuck with redhat and all the latest versions of gnome and kde only have have rpm's for the latest or last 2 versions of mandrake or redhat or suse. If your behind you need to buy again and again. Kind of like a subscription. Hmmmm

    How about FTP'ing them, just like you do your precious Deb packages? Lord I hate Debian FUD. There are plenty of reasons to use Debian no need to BS in order to make it look even better. This kind of CRAP benefits NO ONE
  • My experience exactly. People keep claiming how user friendly mandrake is. I have tried each version from 7.0 and each time I had the the same feeling: "which idiot decided to call *this* stable". Using mandrake brings back memories of the early windows 95. Random lock ups, stuff failing randomly. Ok there's no BSODs but I consider an X crash to be pretty much the same as the only realistic option for a newby user is to reboot. The 7.x version had a few nice bugs that made urpmi fuck up its database from time to time (this makes using the rpm packaging tools pretty risky, especially for newbies who can't figure out how to recover the db). Using the configuration utilities more than once during a session on 8.0 also reveals some interesting bugs. I recently tried to configure adsl with mandrake (which apparently is possible in my area). While it is nice that this can be done, I found the procedure to be unstable (segfaults!) so I did things from the commandline. In addition, using both kde and gnome on mandrake 8.0 I have experienced several lock ups in X.

    In my experience Mandrakes testing procedures do not go beyond "works for me". They consistently release too early, meaning that there are serious bugs in off the shelf mandrake distributions.

    I think this is unfortunate because there are some good ideas behind the distribution. The configuration tools have the potential to be very nice. However, their current instability makes using them somewhat dangerous since you may very well end up with a misconfigured system. Linuxconf is a good replacement in most cases though.
  • OK, looking at the Babelfish translation helped with business-speak. Second paragraph is:

    It will be done in the "Marché Libre" [see the explaination in the letter below], near the end of July. According to this document, this IPO has the goal of permitting the persuit of fantastic growth in market share without having their hands tied by by investors who, as everyone knows, have become less generous with the new economy and are waiting (too) impatiently for a return on investment.

  • Here it is: Mandrake is going IPO. Sources close to the company have given us a document that has already been distributed to the employees and shareholders (?) (or, at least, certain of them [reference to the recently departed former executive staff???]).

    It will be done in the "Marché Libre" [see the explaination in the letter below], near the end of July. According to this document, this IPO has the goal of permitting [something -- seems garbled, or I just don't understand investment-French, or both] without having their hands tied by by investors who, as everyone knows, have become less generous with the new economy and are waiting (too) impatiently for a return on investment.

    You will find in the complete text of the article the document, just as we received it.


  • This is sort of an assinine idea of Mandrake considering the following factors. Right now the economy is down, and people are scared of dumping money into tech stocks. Redhat just turned it's first profit, and their profits were miniscule. Redhat will also crush them, and considering Mandrake is a Redhat spinoff, more people will take Redhat more serious than its clone.

    Now only that but Redhat just announced going DB, of which it should strengthen their position among the Linux distro's. So why would someone want to invest money in Mandrake when the alternatives look alot snappier? They'd either be desperate, and going out of business hoping some quick investors would be clueless to invest in them so they could continue, or as arrogant as people depict the French. (oui!)

  • Let's take a look at the average desktop user worthy to note that would spend capital on an OS, and note that the biggest market for this would have to be businesses. I've said it once a million times, it would cost companies an arm and a leg in downtime to move legacy systems over to anything other than MS, now that they've bastardized themselves into `find . -name *MS*` .

    Aside from that, do you expect corporate types to understand how to compile programs, how to find the neccessary programs to support already business standardized documents such as .xls, .doc, and other files? Most of these companies' IT departments know squat as it is.

    Sure you could make Mandrake as user friendly as possible, but it still won't look at good to CTO types who's only tech skills come as loading a cd and letting a self installer do its work for them. Its cost effective, and simpler that.
  • Mandrake will be IPOing. Gael, prepare the taunts and the cows. This time it's personal.

  • I can see the prospectus, "Mandraksoft, the only good thing in france!"
  • Informative? He didn't even read the article!
    They're filing for an IPO on the European market, so the SEC is of little interest.
  • ...people will take Redhat more serious than its clone...

    First of all, Mandrake USED to be based upon Redhat, but since then it has evolved to its own independent distro. Personally, I have found that Redhat is certainly no where near as powerful in terms of self-configuration, and I would never even CONSIDER going back to Red Hat until it provides something that Mandrake does not. Unfortunately, we use RH systems at my place of employment (even more unfortunately we use outdated DEC Alpha systems with Netscape 4.0!!!! - CRASH!).

    As it turns out, Mandrake sets up better than Windows did on my pc. I did not have to supply even 1 external driver. It automatically recognized my printer and video card(which windows 98 didn't) AND my tv-tuner (which neither win98/2k) did. Mandrake 8.0 was a flawless installation and took under 15 minutes (including partitioning and format). My money's on these guys...

  • If Mandrake IPO's, redhat's position on anything other than a server is pretty much annihilated.

    Hmmm.... A bit of an oversimplification?

    Don't get me wrong, I like Mandrake. IMO, they have what it takes to be successful, and I think that they are an ideal distro for a small business (though I am thoroughly impressed also with RH7.1 and SUSE 7.1).

    You also state: Red Hat simply isn't. I know people at Red Hat (many of them are in my LUG). They are absolutely stupid and clueless about anything relating to making anything usable. Mandrake makes many useful utilities that make linux easier for newcomers.

    Mandrake has some advantages over SuSE-- better RPM support, etc. But, in general, I have been less than pleased with the server utilities in Mandrake. Given that the server market seems to be Mandrakes new primary area of focus, this will hurt them somewhat in many markets.

    Of course, given the track records of companies trying to put linux on desktop (as opposed to just to doing server closet support), Mandrake will have a long and difficult fight ahead of them.

    No one can do this as a distributor of Linux... Period. You cannot make much profit directly on your sales of CDs regarding Linux. Instead one has to do one of the following:
    1: consult for corporations considering it on their desktops. (See Ximian)
    2: Actually sell the consumer boxes which run Linux.

    Someone has to pay the development costs when anyone can download the fruits of your labor. It is either the consumer who buyes it with their new Thunderbird 1.2GHZ system or by MegaWigits Inc. when they want their workstations to run Linux.

    Mandrake is in for the fight of their life. But I do support them, for what it is worth.

  • Mandrake is definately better than Red Hat for the desktop. It's enhancement utilities (such as DrakFont) makes it MUCH more pleasurable to use for everyday use on my desktop. Including the GNOME SAMBA browser in Mandrake 8.0 makes it dead easy to connect it to a `Doze network as a client, or to my Red Hat server in the next room running SAMBA.

    And I like the fact that Mandrake is more bleeding edge... They included Reiser back in version 7.0 (the first version I used). They were the first to ship with 4.0 of X.

    However, Red Hat's conservatism makes it better suited for servers. My server runs Red Hat, and I'd not think of running anything else on it.

    Good luck! It's ballsy going IPO now, but the upside is that Mandrake won't suffer the undeserved bad press of going up unrealisticly during a bubble and crashing back to reality as Red Hat did. I will certainly look into adding a few shares.

  • "Now, DrakFont is definately awesome, and I applaud them for continuing to push the envelope."

    I wish Red Hat would do something similar to DrakFont... It'd radically increase the look of their desktop. Mandrake's been doing it since 7.1, I wonder why RH doesn't borrow ideas back from the distro that originally was an improved Red Hat?

    "Regardless, the developers are kick ass guys and have done tons for the community and have kept their stuff GPL, so regardless of what you think of their distro, they definately get a Good Luck(tm) from me"

    Yep, compared to Caldera (which I'd nickname MSOpenActiveDirectLinux2000XP), Mandrake is a FAR better company to support. Mandrake contributes a ton to making Linux ready for the desktop and the newbie user. I've personally introduced several friends to Linux by handing them a copy of Mandrake.
    Anyone who can install `Doze can install Mandrake.

  • IPO update (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26, 2001 @01:53PM (#126962)
    I've learned that Mandrakesoft is working to enable the entire community of users and contributors to take part in the IPO. As of now, MandrakeSoft is only able include European contributors for the "special" offering due to regulations -- US contributors aren't allowed to participate in the special 10% part of the IPO because the SEC forbids solicitation; however, US citizens can buy shares in the 30% open part. So it seems that people who are located outside of the ECC can participate in the "open" offering, or wait until after the IPO.

  • Different Markets (Score:3)

    by gengee ( 124713 ) <gengis@hawaii.rr.com> on Tuesday June 26, 2001 @02:14PM (#126963)
    Mandrake and RedHat target different markets. As much has been said by RedHat. RedHat is not concerned w/ the desktop market. They want to keep their desktop users happy - but they're not going to go out of their way to attract the masses.

    RedHat wants the server market. Low-end to mid-end right now, but perhaps the high-end as well in the future. Their decision w/ RedHat DB illustrates that point.

    Mandrake on the other hand is widely considered the best choice for the desktop. They have other offerings too (Mandrake Firewall, etc) but their main market remains the desktop.
    signature smigmature

  • Re:My Personal Experience... (Score:3)

    by babs2 ( 462885 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2001 @09:32PM (#126964)
    Mandrakesoft have problems with the first month of e-commerce because of two much order. Now it should be ok. So if you didn't not received it, it's not normal. please drop an email to service@mandrakestore.com.
  • Red Hat simply isn't. I know people at Red Hat (many of them are in my LUG). They are absolutely stupid and clueless about anything relating to making anything usable. Mandrake makes many useful utilities that make linux easier for newcomers. The UI for the mandrake installer is far more competantly designed than Anaconda. If Mandrake IPO's, redhat's position on anything other than a server is pretty much annihilated.

    Of course, given the track records of companies trying to put linux on desktop (as opposed to just to doing server closet support), Mandrake will have a long and difficult fight ahead of them.

  • Decisions, decisions... (Score:4)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2001 @01:53PM (#126966)
    So, if we want to give money to Mandrake (beyond just forking over cash for their distro), should we take the selfless route and donate through Paypal, or do we take the mildly selfish route and buy a few shares of it?

    At any rate, I love Mandrake. I never thought I could ever love a bunch of Frogs this much. Personally, I think that if any distro is going to successfully conquer the laptop, it will be Mandrake.

  • Leaked info under NDA? (Score:5)

    by Max von H. ( 19283 ) on Tuesday June 26, 2001 @03:42PM (#126967)
    It seems this info wasn't really supposed to be public for a while, according to a poster on the site who noted the first paragraph of the announcement was missing:

    "This letter is sent to all Mandrakesoft shareholders and employees. It gives more details about MandrakeSoft IPO plans. Please keep this letter private - you can say that we do an IPO, but you cannot give any detail until we get the COB agreement."

    Can anyone from Mandrake confirm this? For those who don't know, the COB is the French equivalent to the SEC. I'd hate to see the guys at Mandrake get into trouble for that...

    /max

Slashdot Top Deals

To the landlord belongs the doorknobs.

Close