[plug] Mandrake on the rocks?

[Bret Busby]

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Derek Fountain wrote:

> 
> > But you are correct, it'll sadden me if they go under. It really is a nice
> > distro to install. If only they didn't install that silly service to turn
> > on the num-lock.
> 
> Can't say I'm surprised. Putting millions into your product, then giving it 
> away isn't a great business model, IMHO. It can be made to work, but there's 
> only so much room in the market to support it. Redhat have that market sewn 
> up, AFAICS.
> 
> I think SuSE have the model just about right at the moment. They don't make 
> ISOs available, and protect their product by having a restrictive licence on 
> their installer. Friends can share it on a non-profit basis, but somewhere 
> along the line SuSE have made some money because someone had to buy the 
> disks.
> 
> I guess the free software purists don't like it, but you can't half see the 
> sense of it in their product. They can afford top quality engineers and 
> produce a top quality product, and still turn a profit without relying on IPO 
> money.
> 
> 
> 

I'm no Linux company financial expert, but, from what I have seen, Red 
Hat has manged to make its profit by supplemental services, for which it 
charges, eg, the fee-based RHN subscription service, the training 
courses (which are not available in Perth, eg, the RHCT course), and 
other such services, and, also, from expensive add-ons, eg, the RH 
server software packages, etc.

That is what I have read, anyway.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Douglas Adams, 1988
....................................................