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Caldera

Caldera Systems Files For IPO 97

Posted by CmdrTaco from the we-wondered-who-was-next dept.
Well we figured it was either Caldera or LinuxCare, but I've seen the Press Release: The latest Linux Company to file for an initial public offering is Caldera Systems. (btw they need to win an award for 'Linux company CEO with name most likely to be confused with an action hero' for Ransom Love) No word on when or shares or anything, but I'm sure all will trickle out in due time. The rumors are raging that Linuxcare is due to file their S1 before the end of the week.
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Caldera Systems Files For IPO More

Caldera Systems Files For IPO

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  • Re:Caldera? IPO? Hah! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Uh, I think you're talking about **COREL**, not Caldera. Corel used Debian as their distribution. Corel invented the Netwinder.

  • When OpenLinux 2.3 boots up and goes to the kdm login screen, that is the logo that is displayed. Maybe the two companies became separate after 2.3 was released, but even so, the icon seems appropriate enough.
  • according to: http://www.calderasystems.com/company/, [calderasystems.com] Caldera Systems, Inc. is a registered trademark of Caldera, Inc. I'm guessing that Caldera, Inc owns Caldera Systems?
  • /* I propose we replace all Slashdot moderators with a simple script. */

    if (comment_id < 15 && message_lines > 3) {
    moderate_comment(-1); //uses random -1 parameter
    } else if (message_lines > 25 && message_paragraphs > 3 && grammar() == "good") {
    moderate_comment(1); //uses random +1 parameter
    }

    /* Maybe include Linux criticism detection in v0.2... */

    --

  • he has a mechanical hand and french kisses his sister, as well. I, for one, blame his father.
  • LNUX VA Linux Systems Inc
    Last: 165 1/4
    52 Week Range: 161 1/2 - 320

    I think VA is a good company but it's not necessarily a good idea to buy into Linux companies just after they go public.
  • So, you're saying that Malda is Luke Skywalker?

  • AFAIK Ransom Love was never CEO of Novell. Ray Noorda, former CEO of Novell has a large investment in Caldera however.

    --hunter
  • This is great news. Folks, get in on this one if you can. Linux companies are here to stay, and if you have the chance you should lend them some support. (hint: open an E*Trade account now)
  • If you have difficulties seeing the site, you're obviously using a non-supported browser like MSIE. MSIE's colour support in tables is *broken*.

    (This was unintentional on my part -- I do not have any way of testing my pages under MSIE, so I didn't realize how horrendous they looked with that browser. I plan on fixing this -- *some day* -- but in the meantime, why not view the pages with a working browser such as Netscape or Lynx? :-) )
  • You're right, of course. Unfortunately, I am not willing to pay hundreds of dollars to purchase a mediocre proprietary operating system plus the hard drive space upon which to install it, so you'll just have to live with the colours until such time as I can get it fixed. :-)
  • Does anyone have a URL to the prospectus. I cant find it on either Caldera's or Wit's website.
  • thats funny, http://www.calderasystems.com/ looks remarkably like http://www.caldera.com/
  • http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=distro2&aid=- 1

    Sure, this is not science, but I think it tells us something.
  • Yeah well, bad MS user me...

    why not view the pages with a working browser such as Netscape or Lynx?

    Because MSIE is doing the job just fine for me with 99.999% of the pages out there.

    Besides, if I wanted to travel back in time I'd use something better than Lynx to accomplish that.

    Breace.
  • Of course, if you had seen the announcement on http://www.LinuxNinja.com , you would know for sure that you are not color-blind.

    Dude, I don't mind the shameless plug, but what the fsck is up with blue text on a blue background?

    Breace.
  • Not the same company.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Don't take this post the wrong way: I don't with what that poster was saying. But why is it that so many people take the black/white attitude about using Slashdot. Can't someone use the site and still think it could be improved? Obviously this place isn't perfect, so why do you tell other people to leave when they criticize it?

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Are you sure Ransom Love isn't his Wu-Name [recordstore.com]?
  • So can anyone tell me (or point me in the right direction) regarding how I can cash in on IPOs like this? I'm a Linux user, not a stock buff. Are there any tips or resources out there that can help us folk? I have a little dinero that I'd like to invest. Any takers?

    --Justin
  • This is exactly the kind of media mistake Caldera Systems needs to get that stock price up. Just imagine:


    In one day Caldera Systems/Inc. received a $30 million investment from a number of major IT companies, a $150 million settlement from Microsoft and then continued to file for IPO! Is this the Microsoft killer the industry is betting on?


    Here's a tip: Get a perspectise and Invest now!

  • Couldn't wait for the copies of their press release on the Microsoft settlement to cool off. Guess you gotta capitalize when you look your best.

  • Looks like Caldera != Caldera Systems [slashdot.org]. I wish one of them would change their damn name so I don't look stupid again. (I know I've just set myself up for nice flamebait)

  • And now the IPO. I've talked to some friends of founders and they all
    want to know how much cash is in it for them. ;)


    (1st?)
  • People also say bet on black, or bet on red.
    The public has overinflated nearly all of the stocks you have mentioned above..

    Investors put their money in stocks that have stable, secure values.
    People who put their money in these stocks are gambling: VA, redhat, etc. could suddenly lose popularity and crash..
    Buying Caldera is gambling that it will become popular.
  • Actually, both Caldera Systems, Inc. and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. (DR-DOS) are wholly owned subsidiaries of Caldera, Inc. Therefore, they are not entirely separate at all.

  • You mean the "friends and family" plan ? At this point I wish I was at least a second cousin. (Maybe in Kentucky...)
  • I would guess Corel would be the "Other RedHat"...Of course I've seen them, Caldera, RH, Macmillan Linux (featuring Mandrake) and Suse at Best buy. Still looking for Slakware or Debian to show up.


    mcrandello@my-deja.com
    rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
  • Unfortuneately, even though we are intelligent enough to install linux, according to some (non-linux users no doubt) in high places in our governments, we are still too stupid to know where to put our own money.
  • What do you think the odds of a small time investor getting in on the IPO are? I mean few thousand dollars...
  • Didnt they already IPO? which linux distribution was that then? Did the parent company spin off Caldera, and now they are IPO'n as well? Did I miss something? Am I a moron? (or rather is me beinga moron contributing to my confusion?)...

    NightHawk
  • You obviously don't think the correction last week was enough. I'd be interested to hear what you expect to see.
  • Is known for having one of the buggiest and most expensive Linux distributions available, odd in an industry where technical superiority is valued above marketing hype.

    You'll have to do better than blanket accusations. I'd say bug counts are pretty even between the distributions, with the possible exception of Debian, which I haven't seen.

    Stole Debian's purely grass-roots open-source volunteer-maintained distribution en masse

    What are you smoking? Caldera stole nothing from Debian. Perchance you mean Corel, which partnered with Debian.

    Your fourth bullet point is a mish-mash. Caldera Inc., settlers of the lawsuit, is unrelated to Caldera Systems at this point. Lineo is also a separate company - note the difference in names. And, yes, for the record, we are scattered across several buildings, and bursting at the seams in all of them.

    This is very un-opensource-ish...

    What has this line of reasoning to do with splitting companies that operate (Lineo and Caldera Systems) in totally separate markets? Indeed, a good open source approach would be to stick to what you're good at and let someone else do what they excel at doing and not foolishly conflate the two projects.

    Got their first significant pile of cash from a deep-pockets lawsuit.

    The stockholders of Caldera, Inc. get this money. For the record, Caldera Systems gets exactly $0 (USD) from this settlement. My own opinion is that they should not have settled but, rather, taken Microsoft to the mat.

    What has Caldera done? We did the IPX port, got Netware clients for Linux, support LSB and LPI, made sure that Netscape completed the port of Navigator/Communicator for Linux, ported Fast Track to Linux.

    Yes, Caldera has a product - lots of people are using it. I repeat, it is not a knock-off of Debian - we use RPM. Technical competence? Red Hat is not self-hosting, OpenLinux is.

    No, I don't forgive you for posting as an AC. If you're going to stay stupid, uninformed things, at least have the courage to stand behind what you say. That's why the phrase is "Anonymous COWARD"

  • A) major Caldera investments from sun, sco, and venture capitalists - 1/10/00

    B) major Caldera settlement news - 1/10/00

    Believe it or not, this was totally coincidental. Caldera Systems is not related to Caldera, Inc.

    Coincidence? Aye think not! :)

    Ye think wrong. :)

    -- Not speaking for Caldera, even if they were foolish enough to let me.

  • Alas, OpenLinux 2.3 was released before the new logo and corporate look were created. The companies became separate in 1998, as the press releases at Lineo [lineo.com] and Caldera Systems [calderasystems.com] make clear. You are mistakenly conflating logos, companies, and dates.
  • It's too bad that none of us will be able to get any stock until after the price skyrockets. There's no way to get in on the ground level with these things.
  • What a year this guy must be having. As former CEO of Novell, I'm sure that $150M settlement with Microsoft was a pretty sweet moment for him. All this topped off with an IPO almost guaranteed to go through the roof.
  • Your right, Ransom Love was actually a Senior Product Manager at Novell, not CEO.
  • Caldera really hasn't created a meaningful presence in the market the way RedHat has, or made a full-on dramatic embrace of linux the way Corel has.

    Caldera is the wallflower of linux distrobutions - it has pathetic marketing, a weak brand, and very little in the way of a compelling value add. I fail to see how Caldera is better suited for "business" than any other distribution.

    Whether you like RedHat or not, you have to commend the way they have created a huge buzz around their brand - they've made themselves synonomous with linux.

  • I wonder if they'll do that "The Letter" thing... Comments from any caldera employees out there (I see you! Just come forward and tell us! *g*)?
  • moderate this down, por favor, but I freaking despise people that wave "I told you so" nonsense in the face of people who know what time it is and don't need it, thankyavaymuch. Save it for a yahoo board or whatever, knucklehead.
  • Gee I really hope that I am in the same trading house that will be doing Caldera, so I can be told that I can't buy the stock as it opens like with Red Hat. On a more serious note thouigh, I doubt that Caldera will exhibit the same gains that Red Hat did out of the gate. My reason for saying this, is the fact that Red Hat was a strange beast to the market, therefore grabing investor's interest. Caldera will become, *that other Red Hat company* As far as the business world is concerned, Red Hat is the linux company and everybody else that hits the market is trying to ride Red Hat's coat tails as long as they can. I could be wrong. I guess we will see what happens soon enough.

  • I didn't see any press release linked with the story. So here's one from C/NET [cnetinvestor.com].

    (Of course, if you had seen the announcement on http://www.LinuxNinja.com [linuxninja.com], you would have already known that. ;-) )

    (Score: -1, Shameless Plug)

  • See this post [slashdot.org] from an employee for the gory details.
  • Not likely, unless you've made some open source programs, or have a *damn* good broker. And I don't mean E Trade!

    You will have chances to buy after it IPO's, I'm sure they'll do well anyway.

  • A) major Caldera investments from sun, sco, and venture capitalists - 1/10/00
    B) major Caldera settlement news - 1/10/00
    C) Caldera files for IPO 1/10/00

    Coincidence? Aye think not! :)

    Warm up those E*TRADE accounts boys, Caldera really knows how to rile up the market!

    -konstant
    Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
  • I've been reading Under the Radar by Robert Young. A whole bunch of big players just had a chance to get in on Caldera. That would be the show of strength and backing that leads to the IPO announcement.
  • Like it or not MS is still a good Wall Street darling, growing in size *AND* actually turning a profit today, not tommorrow. My IPO prospectus doesn't look that good to investors when it says that I am tangled up in court with the firm with the larget market cap in the U.S. Get that behind you and you are looking at first day closing prices of $100-$150. If not, you might be looking at $4-14.
  • Truthfully, I expect to see a full 50% or better of recent .coms and service vendors to tank. Every market has room for competition, but many of the ones hitting the books right now are focused not on an industry, which grows over time, but on a specific technology or concept, which is eventually outdated. Also, stocks like the consumer market are a psychological game as much as anything else, and once brand loyalty truly sets in, anyone not under that umbrella is in for tough times.

    There is, unfortunately, not enough room in this pool for everyone. That's because the pool keeps having the water sucked out the bottom in response to fresh, new water being poured on top. Eventually, any company that gets too close to the bottom will be sucked right out of the market by the inexorable march of progress. And simple logic tells us that somebody always has to be on the bottom, or else there would be no top.

    Micro$quish is still a viable stock, but look at what they've done to themselves by tying the whole farm to OS's. Unless changed, eventually they too will be sucked under in this market by that mentality, not their failure to buy into Open Source or any of their other "sins."

  • Caldera Systems != Caldera (Score:3)

    by Barbarian ( 9467 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:20PM (#1384626)
    They are related, but Caldera & Microsoft settled the lawsuit. Caldera system is different.

  • Re:"Friends and family" program looks juicy (Score:3)

    by Mark Atwood ( 19301 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:37PM (#1384627)
    Wit Capital is a rightious corporation. Starting from a private offering of a microbrewery to fans of their beer, to creating an online market venue for owners of those shares, they basically invented and forced the US SEC to recognize, the intersection of the `net and the stock market.

    Go read their story. It's pretty fun.
  • oops. this one [slashdot.org] is the one with (more of) the details. (See what I mean about the poofreader thing? :-)

  • Wrong Logo - Different Company (Score:3)

    by turg ( 19864 ) <turg AT winston DOT org> on Monday January 10, 2000 @05:13PM (#1384629) Journal
    Slashdot needs to get a logo for Caldera Systems-- an entirely seperate company from Caldera Inc.(Yes, this also means that this is not the company that just settled a lawsuit with Microsoft.)

  • Just wait! (was Re:We can't) (Score:3)

    by PsychoKiller ( 20824 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @09:34PM (#1384630) Homepage
    I know how you feel. I've had my saving stuck in 4% bonds for the past few years. Now that I've turned 19, I got a self directed RRSP (Canadian term) trading account at www.tdwaterhouse.ca (.com for those in the States). I've made about 40% on my money since then. We've got our lifetimes ahead of us, and I'm sure there will be more hot Linux IPO's. Chances are you'll get stock options in your own company, so have fun.

    BTW, if you are interested in learning how to invest, check out http://www.fool.com, as they are an excellent site for the newcomer. Watch for me on the M$FT board fighting FUD.

  • Caldera company clarifications (Score:3)

    by Ledge Kindred ( 82988 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @06:09PM (#1384631)
    Ok, so I thought that "Caldera, Inc." spun off "Caldera Thin Clients" into "Lineo" and then became "Caldera Systems, Inc." but according to some of the posts under this article, "Caldera, Inc." is apparently still around? I'm confused.

    What does "Caldera, Inc." do anymore, or are they just a company that exists for the express purpose of suing Microsoft since "Caldera Systems, Inc." is the "OpenLinux company" and "Lineo" is the "embedded Linux, DRDOS, etc. company" or do I have that all screwed up, despite looking on all their websites.

    (FWIW, "www.caldera.com" and "www.calderasystems.com" are identical and feature Open Linux, "www.lineo.com" is what you would expect with Embeddix, Embrowser, DRDOS, etc, and "www.calderainc.com" forwards to "www.drdos.com", the only content on which is information about the "Caldera vs. Microsoft" lawsuit.)

    -=-=-=-=-

  • Buy! But, why?? (Score:3)

    by Darlok ( 131116 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @05:47PM (#1384632)
    First off, let me just say that while I probably won't put as much into this as I did the RedHat IPO, I'm almost certain to buy a few shares, and probably sell them when they look close to the initial peak, just like I did RedHat.

    Now, the question:
    WHY?!?!? I've been at this a decently long time, and while techs are the sweetie of the stock market right now, we're starting to reach a glut of tech stocks where NONE of them are profitable. Look at Caldera's figures... unless there's some catastrophic correction event, the IPO will likely skyrocket like the others in the first few days. But, c'mon here... Revenue was $3.1M, loss was $9.4M with strikingly similar behavior in the previous two years.

    The stock market is not a zero-sum game, but neither is it the Great Inverter, destined to sweep all chronically red companies into the black. Eventually, something has to give, and I don't see that time being too far off at this point... tech stocks have a trial by fire in the next 2 years, or I'll eat my sock.

    So, buy buy buy. I'll just be watching for the revolution, 'cause I don't care to be first against the wall when it does come... Hear the gunshots yet? ;)

  • What correction? (Score:3)

    by Jett ( 135113 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @06:54PM (#1384633)
    That wasn't a correction, it was a tiny little dip, the system reset itself already. I agree, there is gonna be hell to pay pretty soon. Too many internet companies are trying to grow themselves to fast. They throw out common business sense in the hope that they can either grow large enough to sustain themselves or they get bought out by some bigger company. They are betting way to much on the future. YES some of them will survive, I'm not saying we'll see a total crash of the stock market. I just believe that it's very likely that the overvalued stocks are gonna reset themselves to more sane levels. The next 2 years is the most likely timeframe, probably right after xmas season of 2000. Of course the way the New Economy seems to operate I could be totally wrong. It's very possible that the rate of growth of the internet will sustain these companies growth and they will become profitable. I don't think that's very likely though.

  • You are confounding Caldera and Corel (Score:4)

    by whig ( 6869 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @08:59PM (#1384634) Homepage Journal
    Without endorsing your comments, it is clear that you mean to refer sometimes to Corel, other times Caldera. It is Corel that based their distribution on Debian, not Caldera. It is Corel that created the Netwinder (now spun-off to Rebel.com), not Caldera. It is Caldera that sued Microsoft over DR-DOS, not Corel.

    And yes, Caldera has a product, which is closer to RedHat than Debian (at least, it uses RPM). They've been around a long time, and they are very well respected by many people. So, if you're going to be critical, you'd better get a clue what you're talking about first.

  • Re:Caldara IPO (Score:4)

    by DarkClown ( 7673 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @05:54PM (#1384635) Homepage
    beware of those addressing people as 'folks' regarding stock activity.

  • "Friends and family" program looks juicy (Score:5)

    by raph ( 3148 ) on Monday January 10, 2000 @07:21PM (#1384636) Homepage
    From this quote in the S-1, it looks like there's going to be another friends and family program for open source developers. Kudos to them for being upfront and stating clearly that 5% is set aside for this.


    Directed Share Program. At our request, the underwriters have reserved for sale, at the initial public offering price, up to ten percent of the shares of common stock offered in this offering under a directed share program. We
    currently expect that approximately half of these shares will be offered to directors, officers, employees, business associates, and related persons of Caldera Systems pursuant to a directed share program being administered by FleetBoston Robertson Stephens Inc., and that approximately half of these shares, pursuant to a directed share program being administered by Wit Capital Corporation, will be offered to open source software developers and other persons that we believe have contributed to the success of the open source software community and to the growth of Caldera Systems. We cannot assure you that any of the reserved shares will be so purchased. The number of shares of common stock available for sale to the general public in this offering will be reduced by the number of reserved shares sold. Any reserved shares not purchased will be offered to the general public on the same basis as the other shares offered in this offering.

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