Jeff,
I just don't think there is much money to be made here. See my post to max. The first time another major player -SCO?- comes out with a competing product this this guy is going to tank. They now have a market cap of almost 9 billion dollars. They had revenues of 10 million year end feb 28 1999 and lost 91k. Last quarter they had revenues of 2.7 million and lost 2 million dollars.
Here are the risks that they list in their perspectus:
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RISK FACTORS
THIS OFFERING INVOLVES A HIGH DEGREE OF RISK. YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER
THE RISKS DESCRIBED BELOW AND THE OTHER INFORMATION IN THIS PROSPECTUS BEFORE
DECIDING TO INVEST IN THE SHARES OF COMMON STOCK.
RISKS RELATED TO OUR LINUX-BASED OPEN SOURCE BUSINESS MODEL
OUR BUSINESS MAY NOT SUCCEED BECAUSE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE BUSINESS MODELS ARE
UNPROVEN
We have not demonstrated the success of our open source business model,
which gives our customers the right freely to copy and distribute our software.
No other company has built a successful open source business. Few open source
software products have gained widespread commercial acceptance partly due to the
lack of viable open source industry participants to offer adequate service and
support on a long term basis. In addition, open source vendors are not able to
provide industry standard warranties and indemnities for their products, since
these products have been developed largely by independent parties over whom open
source vendors exercise no control or supervision. If open source software
should fail to gain widespread commercial acceptance, we would not be able to
sustain our revenue growth and our business could fail.
OUR RELIANCE ON THE SUPPORT OF LINUS TORVALDS AND OTHER PROMINENT LINUX
DEVELOPERS COULD IMPAIR OUR ABILITY TO RELEASE MAJOR PRODUCT UPGRADES AND
MAINTAIN MARKET SHARE
We may not be able to release major product upgrades of Red Hat Linux on a
timely basis because the heart of Red Hat Linux, the Linux kernel, is maintained
by third parties. Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux kernel and
a small group of independent engineers are primarily responsible for the
development and evolution of the Linux kernel. If this group of developers fails
to further develop the Linux kernel or if Mr. Torvalds or other prominent Linux
developers, such as Alan Cox, David Miller or Stephen Tweedie, were to join one
of our competitors or no longer work on the Linux kernel, we will have to either
rely on another party to further develop the kernel or develop it ourselves. We
cannot predict whether enhancements to the kernel would be available from
reliable alternative sources. We could be forced to rely to a greater extent on
our own development efforts, which would increase our development expenses and
may delay our product release and upgrade schedules. In addition, any failure on
the part of the kernel developers to further develop and enhance the kernel
could stifle the development of additional Linux-based applications.
WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY ASSEMBLE AND TEST OUR SOFTWARE BECAUSE IT
CONSISTS LARGELY OF CODE DEVELOPED BY INDEPENDENT THIRD PARTIES OVER WHOM WE
EXERCISE NO CONTROL, WHICH COULD RESULT IN UNRELIABLE PRODUCTS AND DAMAGE TO
OUR REPUTATION
Red Hat Linux, in compressed form, consists of approximately 573 megabytes
of code. Of that total, approximately 500 megabytes have been developed by
independent third parties, including approximately 10 megabytes of code
contained in the Linux kernel. Included within the 573 megabytes of code are
approximately 645 distinct software components developed by thousands of
individual programmers which we must assemble and test before we can release a
new version of Red Hat Linux. If these components are not reliable, Red Hat
Linux could fail, resulting in serious damage to our reputation and potential
litigation. Although we attempt to assemble only the best available components,
we cannot be sure that we will be able to identify the highest quality and most
reliable components or to successfully assemble and test them. In addition, if
these components were no longer available, we would have to develop them
ourselves, which
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would significantly increase our development expenses.
THE SCARCITY OF SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS FOR LINUX-BASED OPERATING SYSTEMS COULD
PREVENT COMMERCIAL ADOPTION OF OUR PRODUCTS
Our products will not gain widespread commercial adoption until there are
more third-party software applications designed to operate on Linux-based
operating systems. These applications include word processors, databases,
accounting packages, spreadsheets, e-mail programs, internet browsers,
presentation and graphics software and personal productivity applications. We
intend to encourage the development of additional applications that operate on
Linux-based operating systems by attracting third-party developers to the Linux
platform and by maintaining our existing developer relationships through
marketing and technical support for third-party developers. If we are not
successful in achieving these goals, however, our products will not gain
widespread commercial acceptance and we will not be able to maintain our product
sales growth.
WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GENERATE REVENUE FROM SALES OF OFFICIAL RED HAT LINUX IF
USERS CAN MORE QUICKLY DOWNLOAD IT FROM THE INTERNET
Anyone can download a free copy of Red Hat Linux from the internet. However,
because this download can take up to 36 hours using a standard telephone
connection, many of our users choose to buy the shrink-wrapped version of
Official Red Hat Linux. If hardware and data transmission technology advances in
the future to the point where increased bandwidth allows users to more quickly
download our products from the internet, users may no longer choose to purchase
Official Red Hat Linux. This could lead to a significant loss of product
revenue.
OUR CUSTOMERS MAY FIND IT DIFFICULT TO INSTALL AND IMPLEMENT RED HAT LINUX,
WHICH COULD LEAD TO CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION AND DAMAGE OUR REPUTATION
Installation and implementation of Red Hat Linux often involves a
significant commitment of resources, financial and otherwise, by our customers.
This process can be lengthy due to the size and complexity of our products and
the need to purchase and install new applications. The failure by us to attract
and retain services personnel to support our customers, the failure of companies
with which we have strategic alliances to commit sufficient resources towards
the installation and implementation of our products, or a delay in
implementation for any other reason could result in dissatisfied customers. This
could damage our reputation and the Red Hat brand, resulting in decreased
product revenue.
NEGATIVE REACTION WITHIN THE OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY TO OUR BUSINESS STRATEGY
COULD HARM OUR REPUTATION AND BUSINESS
Some members of the open source software community have criticized the
expansion of our strategic focus in online chat rooms, electronic bulletin
boards and articles posted on the web. These critics argue that our strategy
could fragment the Linux community into a variety of competing factions,
resulting in a less cohesive and cooperative development process. Others have
suggested that by expanding our focus, we are trying to dominate the market for
Linux-based operating systems and the open source community in the same way that
some companies have been able to dominate the traditional software markets. This
type of negative reaction, if widely shared by our customers, developers or the
rest of the open source community, could harm our reputation, diminish the Red
Hat brand and result in decreased revenue.
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