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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (61523)	6/5/1999 6:17:00 PM
From: Don Lloyd	Respond to of 132070

MB - Short MSFT! -g- 06/04 19:17 DJS Linux-Software Concern Red Hat Files To Go Public DJS Linux-Software Concern Red Hat Files To Go Public WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Red Hat Inc., a distributor of the popular "freeware" program called Linux, Friday filed for an initial public offering of $96.6 million of common shares. Red Hat said it will use IPO proceeds to provide working capital and for other general purposes, including geographic expansion, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also may use the proceeds to acquire businesses, although it hasn't made any plans. Goldman, Sachs & Co., Thomas Weisel Partners LLC and E@Trade Securities Inc. are underwriters. The Durham, N.C.-based company already has gained the financial backing of technology heavyweights like International Business Machines Corp., Compaq Computer Corp., Intel Corp., Oracle Corp., Germany's SAP AG, Novell Inc. and Netscape, which was recently acquired by America Online Inc. In addition to strong industry backing, the four-year-old company has been able to attract some high-profile talent. In May, Red Hat announced that Eric Hahn, the former chief technical officer of Netscape Communications Corp., had joined it board of directors. Hahn was the latest high-technology executive to join Red Hat's management team in recent months. In April, the company named Tim Buckley, a top executive with Seattle-based software maker Visio Corp., as its chief operating officer and senior vice president. The Linux operating system, maintained by a band of software writers world-wide, began as a free alternative to the Unix operating system. It has gained ground of late because of its popularity among developers and also has been helped by persistent delays of a new version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT operating system. While the software itself is free, Red Hat hopes to profit by selling support and service to corporations using Linux. Market researcher International Data Corp. has predicted that use of Linux will grow at a rate of 25% over the next four years - or at least double the growth rate expected for any other operating system. Currently popular with "server" computers used for midrange-computing jobs, Linux will begin moving to the desktop world dominated by Microsoft, IDC says, as more programs and easier-to-use interfaces become available for it. Copyright (c) 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Information provided by DTN.IQ... Regards, Don