After reading the briefing.com article, I can't help but feeling a little d‚j… vu here. Didn't we also read about this kind reasoning awhile back when AMZN, YHOO, EBAY were shooting off the stock charts many years ago? Where are the earnings to justify the huge market cap? There are too many individual investors holding this stock... and so on and on. And despite these traditional based logical deduction, AMZN, YHOO, EBAY and a few others big Internet portal names continued to break new ground on market cap. 2 for 1 split become an annual exercise for many of these companies.
Sure, Briefing.com's article is not without valid. It does make a lot of sense. And I also believe that the stock price is very much depending on investors' sentiment. But isn't it always the case in the stock market? However, I disagree that institution holding is the only way to hold a stock up. Wait! Let me qualify my previous sentence. How about this, I disagree that institution holding is the only way to hold the stock price up if the company's products hold the key to a major change to our current technology trend. IMHO, it is the individual investors who may see the potential future before institutional investors catch on the significance of the new change in technology design. The meteoric rise of the Internet stocks many years ago were, IMO, started by individual investors. It was until later that institutional investors began to see the validity of the inevitable Internet booms. Predictions of an imminent crash of Internet stock price never come. Well, not yet... Yes, we have major corrections along the way but the price kept on bouncing right back up without any sign of letting go. Now, with hindsight, dot.com commercials can be seen everywhere. This may be signifying that Internet is here to stay and will become an integral part of our modern society. Those who stuck to their traditional valuation model missed out the biggest rise of the Internet stocks that are based on our future direction.
Now, Linux, as per the article on the fool.com, may be what a lot of individual investors believe are the future. The Open Source development model discussed in the article may be the ultimate tool that will drive our future society. Per the article, you can't compete with the intellectual resources of the mass. No matter how much money you have to offer, you can only pick the best brain that show up at your door for interview. Yet, IMHO, there are million of intellectuals out there who may be able to come up with an ingenious design for that particular problem or modification required to improve the system. Open Source development allows this collective brainpower from everyone around the world to share and solve problems efficiently thru the Internet. In other words and IMO, it is because of the Internet that the Open Source development model become a very power viable tool. Without the Internet, Open Source development may not have the efficiency as we have today.
Therefore, I see Linux the way I see Internet many years ago. In the next 5 years, I believe Linux, because of its Open Source development model as described by Rob Landley in his article, will evolve into something that is bigger than any one company can create. Perhaps, it is what many of the individual investors see when they bought RHAT or other Linux based stocks. Will it come crashing down because investors' sentiment changes? Sure it will, but I believe it may only fall so much. One thing to watch for is how the Linux operating system proliferates in the near future. As more people and businesses begin to accept the Linux system down our technological lane, Linux may become an integral part of any computer related system just like Internet has already become an integral part of our modern society.
Ooop, yeah, there is still the nagging issue of a non-standardized Linux out there. Which Linux version is better? Well, IMHO, this will be one issue that will determine how fast Linux will successfully evolve into a full powerhouse operating system that can be accept by the mass.
Final thought, think about this, if Linux is making headway into the Network servers business and become part of the network system that run the internet, wouldn't it make sense that in the future, PC operating system also adopt the Linux operating system because it interacts seamlessly with the internet? Am I making sense here?
Disclaimer: all of the above is my opinion only. I am neither a technical person and nor a computer programmer, if any of my thoughts above do not make sense because of my ignorance of the technical issues, I apologize for my ignorance. Please correct my technical assumptions if I am wrong.
Happy Thanksgiving to all! |
