Red Hat is going through a growth spurt as companies become more comfortable with its software as an alternative to Windows and profits fuel the expansion, executives with the developer of open source software said Tuesday. Profitability expanded even as Red Hat grew to more than 1200 employees.
Nice going redhat.
Absolutely. Well done.
When the .com bubble was growing in the late 90s I felt that some of the value of these companies was inflated. Yet at the same time, I also felt that there was something substantial being done. A framework, if you will, that would develop over later decades and centuries.
Those who got in the game early (investors & businesses) stood to gain a lot over the coming decades. So when the .com bubble burst, I felt that these companies were under valued, companies like Red Hat. Not saying I knew who would survive to the present day, though.
It still looks to me like it is part of what needed to happen. There was a grab for virtual real estate, so to speak.
If you remember, in the 80s and early 90s, the media consistently pumped up, or touted, that there was a coming ‘information age’ so to speak. So when the big wave really came (the Internet and all it comes with) people were already sold on the whole idea from years of media-fueled public anticipation.
It was all so new. Almost all investors had little or no clue how these companies worked. Greed got the best of us. We just saw dollar signs and easy pickings. Delusion at its prime.
Wallets opened widely and suckers were taken for a ride by financial ‘backers’ who got discounted pre-IPO shares. They often sold on the same day as the IPO.
Nevertheless, something real was gained in it all. We are more cautious investors. We also have a maturing information age that is no longer teething. Red Hat is one good example of the latter.
Red Hat may be years behind in chronological years but I see no reason why they can’t obtain the same market gains as one of the big tech giants, in the coming years. A general trend is easier to see than the future of any specific company, though.
My $.02.
The better Red Had does, the better Linux will do. They can throw more paid developers at Linux, all the while making Linux a serious contender in the market (and increaseing marketshare). I know there’s going to be a list of people attacking RedHat, but they have to realize that without RedHat and the other corporations, Linux would *not* be where it is today, in spite of the mistakes they’ve made along the way.
I have to agree here. I’m not a big fan of RedHat, but by making Linux more popular and potential customers more comfortable with moving their stuff to Linux, it means
1. Porting of important applications becomes more likely
2. Moving from RedHat to another distro is not such a big step as moving from Windows to Linux
I have to agree with both comments. I would extend it a bit further though because I feel that what is good for Linux [and open source] is also good for the tech industry in general.
I like the work being done by both Microsoft and Apple, but that work has the feeling of an isolated development driven by the desire of a business for profit. They innovate [to varying degrees] and improve on their products, but it is done for their own motivations.
Linux and open source in general develops in different ways. Red Hat certainly improves upon their product with the motivation for profit, but because of the principle basis of open source software, some of the best things that get integrated into the final product are often things developed or improved upon by others. This allows for a very rich flow of ideas and growth.
Looking at how redhat has influenced Linux and Gnome most of their contributions have been a good thing.
Take for example Fedora 5, the system administration tools redhat contributes to Fedora makes it easy to administrate.
For enterprise *free* Linux you could use CentOS. It is stable, widely used and there are tons of free web forums out there to discuss technical problems and get help. Whether it is the RPM package management system, or yum or the bluecurve theme GTK/KDE toolkit integration efforts enterprise linux and desktop linux has greatly benefitted.
Fedora 5 might not be as newbie friendly as Ubuntu but damn it has a nice collection of bleeding edge applications and the latest stable releases of Gnome, Open Office, Eclipse, Zen, Free Java, GCC, Beagle/c# mono, etc.
Edited 2006-03-29 20:08
Red Hat are looking good, and at least they have some idea of what they’re doing – mentioning no names!