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Be

Be Inc. IPO launched 121

Posted by CmdrTaco from the insert-witty-stock-market-joke-here dept.
arielb writes "Be, Inc. is now trading actively on the Nasdaq exchange.. Their ticker symbol is BEOS." They announced at $6 and went up a little.
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Be Inc. IPO launched More

Be Inc. IPO launched

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  • Be and Apple (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Apple willing to pay $400 million for Be when they evaluated their future OS strategy? Today Be has a market cap of $50 million. Couldn't Apple (or anyone else) acquire them now for a fraction of the amount offered two years ago?
  • Tomorrow the MP3.COM IPO starts trading!!!

    That one should be good for a quick buck if I buy it a minute after openning and sell at the end of the day....
  • Going the way of the dodo?

    Man, I think it might be a bit early to start counting them out. I mean, I like OSS and everything, but losing a little market share doesn't mean they're dead.

    A better example is SGI; they're basically living off their savings right now (somewhere in the area of $100 million); they can go on for a couple more years that way. Of course, eventually the cash runs out, then you'd better do something right and quick (yeah, they're moving in the right direction, but I'm fearful that their investments in Linux may take years to pan out).

    ----

  • Er, probably I was thinking of when they killed Apple down to 5% of the market. Or maybe when they muscled out DRDOS or OS/2. Or maybe how the proprietary UN*Xes are losing ground to NT.

    Of course, Linux doesn't play by the same rules as the rest 'o them...

    ----

  • Actually, we got a hands-on with a BeBox at the 1995 (or was it 1996? I'm getting old) ACM conference at UIUC. Then, the UPL in Madison got their hands on one that I got to play with. Finally, we installed the beta on a powermac at my school.

    So yeah, I've played with it. I didn't say that it wasn't a really keen OS, did I? Actually, if you read the original post, I said that superior tech doesn't mean you win the game.

    By the by, do you think that the incredibe similarity beween Linux and other UN*Xes might have something to do with it catching on in the server market? Just a thought.

    I believe the point I was making was that putting your money into a company like Be is only slightly less risky and investment than burning it in your fireplace (which would at least heat your home). That's not a comment on their product, it's a comment on their business plan (which goes something like "Maybe people will want to dual-boot us! Hey, it could happen!").

    In any event, if you'd take your ritlin and read my original post next time, perhaps future rants like this one could be avoided. Of course, perhaps not since I doubt your .03 second attention span has allowed you to read more than the subject line of this post, either.

    ----

  • Long-term loser (Score:3)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Tuesday July 20, 1999 @12:03PM (#1793523) Homepage
    Okay, let's be honest here folks.

    Be's stock might do well in the short run, but dumping your hard-earned saving into it is a big gamble. Let's face it, they have no long-term prospects.

    I mean, this is just another company foolishly deciding to compete with Microsoft by MS's rules in a game that MS has already beaten every other contender in. If Linux proves anything, it proves that the only way to brawl with Microsoft and survive is to change the rules of the game - to (forgive me) think different.

    Besides, Be has no long-term prospects and they don't have an established niche in the market yet. To top it off, the market they claim to be after (graphic design, etc) is one where the user base is infamously loyal to their current platform.

    I know I'll probably get flamed 'cause BeOS is a good system, but anyone over the age of 15 should realize that that's not enough (remember MacOS versus DOS back in the old days? In retrospect, which was really better? Yet which one is used on 90% of PCs now?). Trust me, the only hope that Be has in the next couple of years is that they'll be bought out by someone big - maybe IBM or a company like AOL.

    ----

  • Quit fooling yourself (Score:3)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Tuesday July 20, 1999 @12:21PM (#1793524) Homepage
    Too good to go away? Isn't that a bit optimistic?

    Let's examine this: Be has effectively 0% of the market, they have only a few programs available for their OS, the market they're aiming at (graphic design, layout, etc) is already unreasonably loyal to their current platform, and they're pursuing a typical closed-source business model in a market utterly owned by MS.

    Maybe I'm not seeing it? Look, $61 million isn't *that* much money when you're talking about a fairly big business, especially a business that's been operating without any income for the last 4-5 years.

    Besides, what makes them different from all the other "better" systems that will let them beat Windows? I think Microsoft has already proven that nobody can stand against them when they play by the traditional rules in the OS market.

    I'm not saying that BeOS is a gonner for sure, I'm just saying that they're a real long shot. I hope nobody out there makes it more than a small part of their portfolio, 'cause after a few short-term gains they're liable to lose their shirts.

    ----

  • Perhaps, but I'd consider it unlikely. Red Hat knows it will be receiving more media attention, so their IPO price is likely to be around $12, double that of BE's IPO price. This leaves less room for it to go up (which is what's supposed to happen - it should IPO at what's expected to be the market value, not at a ridiculously low price)
  • Yeah, but you can't buy fewer than 100 shares of stock anyway. If you buy 100 shares of stock at $8, you can break even by selling them at $8.30, only a 3.75% increase in value.
  • The bottom line is that BeOS is just too good to go away.

    That's what we thought about OS/2. But OS/2, like BeOS, was closed-source, and its future controlled by the whims of a single company.

    Now look at where OS/2 is. To this day, no better GUI has been introduced (IMHO), and there's still quite a bit of OS/2 software available, but OS/2 is pretty much dead as a desktop OS.

    BeOS fans: we're not trying to tear down your OS; we're just trying to point out that Be's business plan is perhaps not all that well-though-out.

    --

  • Um.... They did raise money, at $6 a share. That's what an IPO is. If the stock goes up, BEOS doesn't get the money, the people who sell the shares do. If the company holds onto some stock, however, selling that later might make them some money.

    That's why Bill Gates is rich: he kept all his stock.
  • Thats not true. Stock market is only really gambling if you are an idiot and dont know what you are doing. Then again, it doesnt take much more then common sense to make a lot in the stock market. Invest in an IPO at real cheap, wait for a couple days for it to reach like 80 bucks, and then sell sell sell. =)
  • According to the excite quote on the stock, there Market Cap is 271 million.
  • Not really. If the stock opened at say 10 dollars a share, hypothetically, then they could by 200 shares. If in the next year the stock price went up to 100 dollars they would only have 20000 minus the 2000 in profit. I wouldnt quite my day job for that.
  • Windows out performs linux at what? And how does beos perform at that?


    It remains to be seen if beos can out perform linux or windows. I'd also watch out for future developments from apple, they've got a great foundation to build on right now, they may tie that media market up for a long time to come.


    What specifically allows them to work with newer hardware better? In the days of windows hardware I'd guess that anything unMS has less of a chance of working with newer hardware.

    GUI also don't sell computers


    Be's future is in set top and low end hardware if their smart. That's a virgin market ripe for the taking and BeOS can do that job wonderfully, no question about that.

  • That BeOS earned almost half of what it expected to. They were originally going to offer the shares at $10 a throw, at the start, but had to slash this to $6.
  • Uh, record profits for them, sure. Record LOWS for the two quarters prior to this one. MS would have been reporting LOSSES if it wasn't for the tremendous pull from cash reserves the company took to boost their numbers...

    Keep up on current events...

    Unfortunately, MS isn't losing out to anybody. The dip in profits is just due to nothing new and glitzy coming out in that period to get the PHBs to purchase site licenses for... I figure MS stands to make a mint off of W2K provided:

    1) It ever comes to market

    2) The license doesn't have the goofy clause about auto-reporting every bit of software you install to MS... (check some of the prior proposals for Office 2000 license wording, talk about invasion of privacy).
  • Or Lotus 1-2-3
    Or dBase III / IV / X
    Or WordPerfect
    Or PageMaker
    Or Turbo Pascal / C
    Or Watcom C
    Or any other blinking x86 application

    Sucks to go up against MS, doesn't it?
  • The stock closed at 2 1/16 up, for a total of 8 1/16. For 6 million shares, this means that Be has $12,375,000 more than during opening. If this is not good, I don't know what is.
  • Of course, when Amelio looks back I bet he really wishes he'd paid the $400M for Be to not get Steve Jobs. :-)
  • $500 on red! Cool.
  • i follow the quote [bmo.com] for 3 hours, now it's about $8... I really hope Be Inc. will raise money so BeOS will start to fly!
    For those of you who don't know, QuakeII is available (free binary) at BeDepot [bedepot.com]
    --
    http://www.beroute.tzo.com
  • here's the right link of the quote [excite.com]
    --
    http://www.beroute.tzo.com
  • don't forget SBLive as well... i have the chance to have a AWE64, i don't upgrade to a SBLive because there's no driver! Also with the money i hope they will develop TNT(2) OpenGL accelerated driver!
    --
    http://www.beroute.tzo.com
  • You're correct that Be is a big gamble, but I'm not so sure of your reasoning.

    Most companies have lost to Microsoft using "MS's rules" because they each made the Big Screwup: failing to capitalize on Microsoft's missteps. When Win95 was late, IBM could have made OS/2 3.0 a real contender. Instead, they tried to market a business OS to consumers with a series of stupid TV ads. Apple made a bunch of little screwups that became one collective Big Screwup, without ever needing to wait for MS to stumble. That's why Jean Louis Gassee left Apple to found Be in the first place. Digital Research was the only real "victim" of Microsoft, IMHO.

    Be is tiptoeing through a minefield of Big Screwups right now. (There's a really big one marked "Java" that they keep getting close to.) If their ambitions in the set-top space work out, and they can drum up the application support they think they can, they can probably get out alive. But that's a big if, considering we haven't seen anything concrete on either subject.

    Oh, and the MacOS/DOS war? One OS tied to one closed hardware platform from one manufacturer, against one dominant OS and a few alternative OSs on a somewhat open hardware platform from a myriad of manufacturers. The OS was only part of the issue.

    Keith Russell
    OS != Religion
  • Right. I think they just recompiled the Release 3 driver as ELF and put it in as "experimental" because they didn't retest it. It works fine here.
  • Maybe if there was a command line interface to the computer people won't be taking control of the ship and locking the crew from having access to certain things. When all you got is a gui, you limit yourself to whatever the maker of the gui decided to let you access.

  • I know Be does, i was responding to his sig.

    heh

    But even though Be has a cli, it is still limited
    can you do everything in be from the command line? i though so.
  • Sure you can. I've bought in blocks of 200 shares, blocks of 75, blocks of 50 shares, anything you want.
  • BEOS came in 6th place for the day http://finance.yahoo.com/a3?u
  • the whole market tanked today. You should look at the top ten gainers for the day. Be is on that list
  • Avid dropped mac, right?
  • they weren't losing money-they were spending it on R&D. It's not easy creating an OS and a community around it from scratch.
  • So, with all the money Be has burned through, how exactly do you propose they make it back and become profitable while giving away their software for free?

    Red Hat's not turning a profit either. Businesses exist to make money, not give the world free software.

  • SB16 (Score:1)

    by geon ( 7807 )
    They are available. Check this out:

    ftp://ftp.be.com/pub/contrib/drivers/sb16-0.91-x .zip

    They are experimental, so be careful, but i heard they work fine.
  • God, let's hope AOL doesn't buy them. It'll turn into bloatware so fast, your head will spin.

    AOL Instant Messenger for BeOS
    AOL version 5.0 for BeOS
    AOL Winamp for BeOS

    America Online wouldn't know how in the hell to handle an operating system under their brand name. (Hell, they can't even get being an ISP right.) They'll shove so much crap into it, it won't be the lean, clean OS it is now.

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Here's a Flawless way to make LOTS OF CASH:

    Step 1.) Read Slashdot.
    Step 2.) Watch Slashdot for updates on BeOS technology.
    Step 3.) When you see a significant technological breakthrough from Be, Get greedy, go postal, and buy up all remaining stock in Be.
    Step 4.) After the general public gets wind of that "significant technological breakthrough", sell of your stock at double+ price.
    Step 5.) Donate money to Slashdot, Myself, The FSF, Myself, and anyone else you care to give generously to. (Myself included. Hey, It was MY IDEA!)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Adobe Premiere sucks... Try Apple Final Cut Pro or Media 100 or Avid...
  • Well, they do have BeBoxes... but I don't think they make them.. I want a BeBox.. it'd be.. well, phearable...


  • I believe Gasse *wanted* $400-$500 Million for Be, and Apple turned him down. NeXT was purchased for about the same amount.

    (Considering at the time BeOS was just out of beta, and NeXTStep had been around for years and was considered pretty robust, Be's asking price was pretty high. Plus they got Steve Jobs.)
    --
  • The question is: Would MacOS-nextgeneration be out by now if they had bought BeOS instead?

    I don't think so... Here's what they would have needed to do in either case:

    1) Port to PowerPC. Not necessary for BeOS, but apparently NeXT (just like everyone else) had done some work there in the early 90s.

    2) Run the old MacOS in the "Blue Box" on top of the new OS. Probably has more to do with hooks in the MacOS itself than the new OS, so equal work for either.

    3) Overhaul the look-and-feel of the BeOS, write a new "Finder" - I haven't used BeOS, so I don't know how close they already are, but lets assume equal work for either Be or Next.

    4) Develop "Carbon", a transition API, for the established Mac software base. Again, probably equal work for either Be or Next.

    So, even if they'd bought BeOS, I don't see MacOSX Client coming out any earlier. Plus, they wouldn't have the added extras that they got with NeXTStep - multiuser, postscript drawing engine, UNIX, plus Web Objects and a number of existing NeXTStep apps and companies.

    All this might be moot, however, if Be proves to be a much better video platform than OSX Client. (Isn't Avid dropping the Mac due to porting costs?)
    --

  • I don't think PageMaker (or any other Adobe product) has really felt any competition from Microsoft. MS is aiming at the lowend graphics market with PhotoSomething2000, but I don't know if people who buy Photoshop for $600 are really in that market. And MS Publisher - I don't think that's taken seriously at all.

    Some people have successfully competed with Microsoft in the Windows app market:

    + Lotus Notes outsells Exchange client licences. (chalk that up to a huge installed base going back 10+ years)
    + Anything by Adobe
    + CorelDraw
    + FileMaker for Windows has a steadly growing
    base - at least it hasn't been crushed by Access like DBase and Paradox were.
    + Anything competing with MS J++

    --
  • The thread lives...

    I'll give you #3, but I think you need to consider #2 a tie. MacOS 7 ran in a "Blue Box" on the old A/UX operating system, and doing this is the only realistic way for 99% compatibility with existing sofware.

    As for Unix - 99% of Mac users shouldn't need to care. (They will care if they have to start editing config files! Fear.) The few Mac sysadmins I know are interested in a good server platform, because right now the predominate Mac file+print server is Windows NT.

    I'll agree that BeOS would have been a great choice for MacOSX. It's definately closer in spirit to MacOS than NeXTStep. It didn't happen however, so Be will have to live on as it's on system. NeXTStep wasn't exactly alive in recent years, so maybe I'm just happy that it's back. (My biggest concern with Be is that I hold Gasse responsible for many of Apple's fuck-ups in the 80s. Let's just say that I'd take Jobs and his fuck-ups over Gasse's)

    PS - WebObjects is an actual profitable product (an applicaiton server), not a buzzword.
    --
  • Before BeOS - or any platform, for that matter - can get a really good footing in the market people need a good reason for using it as opposed to something else. That usually means offering an application that many people need that no one else can (or does) offer. For the Apple (back in the day) that was the spreadsheet. Lately, M$ has cloned, bought, or otherwise scuttled everyone else's efforts at making a killer app of the sort. IMHO, this is the biggest way in which M$ denies market entry to other companies. Again IMHO, the need for low-price medium-sized Web servers was what allowed Linux+Apache to break into the server market; I'm not sure whether that makes Apache the killer app for Linux or vice-versa ;) Meanwhile, there is no killer app for the Linux desktop environment. I see a link between this lack of a killer app and the slow growth of Linux in the desktop market as compared to its growth in the mid-sized server market.

    My point is that, admitting that BeOS is wonderful and has great potential, until it has something to offer that Windows can't BeOS won't last in the long run.
  • When you "go public" you keep 50% of your companies stock. While Be sold 6 million common shares today, they held another 6 million of their total reserve, so that means that both of you are wrong... Be now has $36,000,000 in liquid assets that they didn't have at the start of the day, plus they have an additional $48,375,000 in stock sitting there. That gives them a total of $84,375,000 that they didn't have at the start of the day.

    Josh, aka Wedge`
  • What makes you think MICROS~1 is going the way of the Dodo? They just posted record profits. Don't delude your self into think that becuase Linux is chipping away at the low-end server market that linux/OSS will sweep them aside. Its like the PFJ in Monty Pythons Life Of Brian dreaming of world domination in the next 5 years.

    If the DOJ keeps the pressure on MICROS~1 and they actually have to compete with people instead of crushing them before they can even get a toe hold, maybe 5 or 10 years from now they'll be a player in a market with multiple choices, rather than the abusive monopoly they are now.

    Whats different about Be is that they have a technicaly excellent OS that is powerful and easy for the average user to use. They basically have the best desktop OS there is, better than Windows, Mac, and yes a better desktop OS than Linux. If they are allowed to compete on the merits of their product they will survive linux, OSS, and MICROS~1 not withstanding.

    The bottom line is that BeOS is just too good to go away.
  • The IPO was for 6 million shares at $6 per.
    Be therefore makes $6 x 6,000,000 = $36,000,000
    they get this money from the underwriter, and it is the underwriter then turns around and sells those 6 million shares on the market and it is they who make money if they can sell those shares at more than $6.

    If you add in Intel's $25,000,000, be has $61,000,000 on hand. Given that they've spent a total of $56,000,000 since 1990 they will be around for a long time to come which is great news for us Be fans (sorry OSS types but BeOS is here to stay)

    The bottom line is that BeOS is just too good to go away.
  • You've obviously never used BeOS. It is as
    mainstream as Linux. Be targeted things at the
    "digital media" market just as Linux was targeted
    at the server market (and you don't suppose Unix
    had a few "unreasonably loyal" followers, do ya?).

    By the way, you've seemed to forgotten about a
    little trial going on called US Gov't vs.
    Microsoft.

    See ya when the hammer falls.

    Just one more thing: "Besides, what makes them
    different from all the other "better" systems that
    will let them beat Windows?"

    You wouldn't even ask that if you had ever really
    used BeOS. It is technologically superior to all
    other OS's I've seen. No, it's not open source...
    just better.

    Yeah, that's my opinion, but you asked for it.

    "after a few short-term gains they're liable to
    lose their shirts."

    Same could be said about 90% of all stocks.

    -WW


    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • Now they just have to pry that stock out of their
    employees cold, dead hands?

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • I would be very surprised to learn that any of
    that 8 million was Be employees buying or selling.
    They get their stock options from headquarters,
    not from the market (in general). And they
    probably aren't allowed (or discouraged) from
    selling stock so soon after the IPO.

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • Your math must be different from mine.

    Half of 10 (the upper limit estimate, BTW) is 5.
    It priced at 6. That means they made MORE than
    half of what they expected, not "almost half."

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • Yes that's right folks.

    Throw out your old BetaMax vs. VHS, Mac vs. DOS
    analogies. We're living in the net times. A place
    where a superior technology (DVD) can beat an
    inferior technology with more marketing power (DIVX). Word of mouth on the net, grassroots
    campaigns, etc. can push the cream to the top...
    even past all the marketdroids from M$.

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • Umm wrong. In the beginning, DIVX had a *LOT* of
    money to spend. They were going to launch a focused, $100-million ad campaign touting DIVX.

    On the other hand, DVD had no such focus because
    it wasn't a single company. There were no ad
    campaigns to try and explain what DVD was all
    about, or how it was better than DIVX.

    In addition, DIVX had the support of many studios
    (some exclusively) through million-dollar bribes
    that were paid out (more money).

    They indeed had more marketing. (Or would you care
    to pull out some DVD ads from 1 1/2 years ago?)

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • How about if you follow the ENTIRE thread first
    before opening your mouth?

    My comments were clearly in response to people
    saying things like "Be can't win on technology
    alone... look at BetaMax vs. VHS or Apple vs. DOS/Windows."

    Thank you very little.

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • As far as I know, their business plan is to get
    their operating system on as many systems as possible. Same as MacOS, Windows, Linux, etc.
    They happen to have superior technology in the
    desktop/appliance market than any of those other
    OS's.

    -WW

    P.S. You're no Freud, ass munch. Try not to psycho-analyze someone you don't even know,
    it just makes you look like more of a moron.


    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • "But even though Be has a cli, it is still limited
    can you do everything in be from the command line?"

    I'm not sure what you mean by "everything."

    For example, if you mean, can I grab my web browser interface and drag it INTO the desktop,
    then close the browser program and continue to
    surf... from the commandline... the answer is "No."

    If you mean, can I easily navigate my hard drive,
    moving, copying, symlinking files and folders in
    many different areas very quickly... from a commandline... then the answer is "No."

    If you mean, can I move data back and forth
    between multiple applications with a few clicks...
    from the commandline... the answer is still "No."

    But if by "everything" you mean the same stuff you
    do in Linux, the answer is "Yes."

    Hope that helps.

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • 1. So you're saying Linux machines can't be taken
    over, because they're based on a CLI? Huh?

    2. My comment about the GUI is not supposed to
    indicate a superior operating system. My comment
    is merely pointing out that any operating system
    based on a CLI has a limited future.

    -WW

    --
    Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
    When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
  • And the best part is that this probably (IANAL) doesn't count as insider trading. A post on Slashdot ought to be considered public knowledge -- tough luck for other investors if they don't read it. :-)
  • E-Trade lets you get in with only $1000 deposit, and you don't even have to invest all of that.
    --JZ
  • I am not that familiar with Be, other than by name and market space, but their opening day was very disappointing.

    First of all, they hoped to raise $60m and when the issue finally priced, it only raised $36m for them. That sounds like a lot of money, but really is not for a high tech company. To convert that to real terms, a 200 person company can burn $3m a month just on overhead and salaries.

    Also, the fact that they couldn't hit their target indicates that they were unconvincing on their roadshow. The roadshow is where price is set based on expected demand from institutional investors. An extreme case the other direction is Ariba, which priced up dramatically in the days leading upto the opening trade. Essentially, it's what the underwriter guarantees to sell their allocation at.

    Finally, a 37% rise on the opening day is pitiful... it indicates that the retail investor saw little intrinsic value in the company or it's prospects for the future. Like it or not, a company stock price is a powerful currency used to attract great employees, secure business relationships and make acquisitions.
  • It didn't go up much?
    That's about a 40% jump.
    That's actually quite a bit. Most companies never seet hat high of a jump. Ever.
    -cpd
  • I think they really have a future in the video editing department. Editing has been done on macs for years, but more and more companies are switching to NT because they "have to." If BeOS had support for editing hardware and software (adobe? hello?) they would really show their stuff. Mac people may be loyal, but they _will_ take an alternative.
  • ...but they are going they way of the Dodo. What's makes Be different?
    ---
    Put Hemos through English 101!
  • Now I can make money off of other software companies other than Microsoft.
  • Ya most IPO's do that b/c of the hype. Redhat's will jump even higher Im betting. Get that stock.
  • On E-Trade it costs $15 per trade. That's $15 to buy and $15 to sell. To break even by buying 1 share at $8, you would have to sell it at $38, a 475% in value.

    Not likely...
  • Divx did *not* have more marketing.
    DIVX == circut city
    DVD == sony, hatachi, matsuhisha(panasonic), philips/magnavox, all video rental places, and most major movie studios
    _
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • obviusly not, look at microsoft
    _
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • 19 more days untill Red Hat's IPO.... I should be getting a few thousand dolars that i can invest (and subsuqently flip :P). I'll be *very* pissed if I don't get a chance to invest. I *know* they are going to go sky high. the hype is increadable (I think, although I do read slashdot a lot....)
    _
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • I think Be only gave up 20% of their stock in
    IPO. see edgar-online. That would put their market cap at around $250 million.
  • SureTrade [suretrade.com] has $7.95 commissions with no minimum opening balance. However, I have no experience with them firsthand, so I don't know how good they are. Also, no broker will let you buy any stock without paying a commission, and they all require checks or money transfers for payment.
  • The underwriter doesn't want to look bad by having an IPO they're launching to do badly. If it did, that would reflect that they screwed up by mispricing the issue. The way they guard against this is by pricing slightly conservatively, and by initally actively supporting the stock in the open market by buying it back when it is cheap. This is why IPOs can often drop after the initial increase - not only does interest wane, but the underwriter will stop supporting the stock.
  • actually there are some exp. drivers for it and i've heard they work fine
  • Be too good to go away ?

    I hate to ruin your day, but bothing is "too good to go away". Don't get me wrong. I tried BeOs and loved it. But they are facing a lot of competition.

    1. Although it is too early to say whether the new MacOs X will hold its promises, there is no doubt that the unix-based system will --at last-- offer decent memory management and multitasking to an impressive range of multimedia apps. Granted, the hardware is expensive, but the installed base and software choice are powerful advantages.

    2. With all the hype around linux, there is a chance that multimedia apps will be developped for it. Remeber the Be demo with 4 movies running simultaneously ? I tried this on Linux. Worked just as well. Whant I'm trying to say is that Linux offers a good basis for multimedia developpement and is getting a lot of attention, right now. Also, it is gaining a foothold in many organizations through the server door.

    3. Amiga. Ok, they are the worst record of vaporware in an industry that has invented th concept, but if their latest annoucement (amiga on top of linux) comes to fruition, this will be another player in Be's ballpark (multimedia OS).

    4. QNX : if I'm not mistaken, they are planning on releasing the work they did for Amiga, before Amiga took the linux route. This could be another contender in the multimedia os market, and a very good one.

    What is happening, I believe, is that MS's less than stellar performance in multimedia has left a small niche open that several players are trying to either take over (Be), or hold on to (Apple). (Linux is a different story, of course as it does not need market revenues to survive).

    It's not like I would like Be to fail. I mean I'm a registered user (I paid for the thing --didn't use a demo version, that is), and an early supporter (I bought R3), but it seems to me that unless a number of killer apps come to Be in the very short term (ports of the main music and video software, for instance) and unless they support some higher range peripherals such as video acquisition boards, or music hardware (audiomedia III, korg 1212, protools, etc.), they will be in for a rough ride.

    I'm staying with Mac right now for all of my music work, not because I like Apple's pricing policy, not because I like MacOS 8.x's memory management, but because I don't have a choice.
  • Avid didn't drop Mac. They're just not bringing over ONE NT app over to the Mac. Avid was really dumb with their PR and everybody thought they'd dumped them, but last week or so their CEO put out a public letter apologizing to their Mac customers and announcing nice price cuts for Mac users as penance. And pledging to continue development of existing Mac products.

    Jon
  • ... from me, anyhow.

    On a lark, I checked out MSFT; their stock dipped over $5 (roughly, 5%) today, not that there's any connection to Be's IPO -- but one can always hope.

    Anyhow, it does suggest a slogan to me:

    ONLY NINETEEN MORE DAYS !!!!

    I suppose we'll have to wait to see what happens to MSFT on RHAT's first day; that may be more telling.

  • I agree with you. I'd rather not, but I do. Be has by far the most amazing, technologically superb desktop OS around right now. But, the desktop computer market (full of PHBs and other idiots) is not a place for ingenuity. Jean Louis Gassée (sp?), Be's CEO, is taking the only path that he can - raise money, advertise to the knowledgeable folks in graphic design, and hope that they listen up. Problem is, Be has to compete with the dredges of MacOS, shiny SGI workstations, and the compatibile Win95/NT systems that inhabit graphic design/media right now.

    Be has a shot, but a very very small one. In all likelyhood, they'll fail, but as the original poster suggested, they may get bought out. If AOL or somesuch company can snap up Be and market the BeOS (providing it's still technically superior by that time), I'll cheer.

    The stock may not be a good investment, but, for many of us, it's an ethically sound one. Support the most superior OS, and if you lose your money, well, hopefully you weren't trusting enough to invest much.

    BTW, as I write this, Be's stock has only gained $2 from its starting price of $6. Doesn't that strike you as a very small gain for a tech stock? Yikes...

  • What makes them better is than the other supposedly better systems is that they are a desktop OS. They have a good, consistant GUI, they have great multimedia performance, a new architechture that will let it fit newer hardware better, and a great API that makes programming for it easier. None of the competing OSs have this. Mac has media, but otherwise performance sucks. Linux media performance is under that of Windows, plus it does not have a consistant GUI, OS/2 is being aimed at the server market, and the other systems are Unixes and share the same problems as Linux. The only one left is Amiga, yea right.
  • BeOS outperforms Linux at everything except web-serving. The GUI launches apps faster, the applications can blit to the screen faster(600fps in a Boot magazine test.) It outperforms Linux in terms of latency for Audio. BDirectWindow outperforms DirectDraw of drawing to the screen, and DirectDraw outperforms the X commands for drawing to the screen. Also Windows outperforms Linux in 3D, and 2D graphics. Windows OpenGL is usually faster that Linux Open GL, and DirectDraw can do draw operations a lot faster than X. Also Windows benefits from having sound accelerated in hardware. Secondly, BeOS will fit better with new hardware, not becuase of support, but at some point, the ability of the OS to move data around at high speed will help performance of newer hardware. MPEG 2 decompression and effects, Digital video capture, audio capture with multiple tracks, etc. Third, GUIs may not sell computers, but they make the easier to use. Linux does not have a GUI that can do every thing the CLI can. Windows does, and BeOS does (for all purposes except scripting, etc.) Fourth. It would be a waste for Be to aim at the low end market. In higher end hardware Be outperforms Windows. Isn't the whole reason the Linux movement exists (in a lot of minds) is to give a better (in most respects) alterative to Windows? Well Be is a better home OS that Linux or Windows, so why should it aim at the low end market?
  • In addition it uses bash, and a lot of the commands are recompiled GNU utlities.
  • Yes, you can buy stocks in odd amounts (i.e. not multiples of 100, or sometimes multiples of 50 or 25 depending on the stock price). However, it's generally not a good idea.

    The reason why is liquidity. It's easy to forget this, but every time you want to buy or sell some shares of stock, there needs to be somebody else willing to sell you or buy from you the same amount of shares. Since most of the world buys stock in multiples of 100, it's hard to find someone who will sell you, say, exactly 62 shares of something--and it will be even harder when you want to sell to find someone who wants to buy exactly 62 shares.

    Now, of course, you're generally not the one who has to deal with this--your broker is. So in order to discourage you and to offset the greater effort involved in finding a buyer/seller, they charge you higher fees for trading odd lots than lots of 100. Plus, the fact that no one wants to buy/sell odd amounts of stock means that there's less supply/demand respectively--which means you inevitably pay more/get less.
  • To bad the IPO was today with near 4% drop in NASDAQ. And rest going down too.
  • "Microsoft has already proven that nobody can stand against them when they play by the traditional rules in the OS market."

    When was that, again?
  • They already abandoned (officially) my S3-Trio64 video card. So feel lucky that a SB16 kinda sorta works.
  • Nope. Be has what they sold the stock for. That was $6 a share. The profit from the price rise is taken by the investors.
  • The stock is up 37%. That is amazing. I bet the same thing happens to RHAT when they begin to actively trade. I'm rolling all of my pennies for RHAT.
  • BeOS is a great OS, it is fast, satble, reliable and costs less then, well, you know who. I am really pleased by BeOS and hope it gains media attention (and I hope it goes Open Source!!!).
    That's my 1/50 of $1.00 US
    JM
    Big Brother is watching, vote Libertarian!!
  • I hope that with their new-found money they can develop and support a SoundBlaster16 driver. Yeah, I know, but I don't WANNA upgrade.

  • No, BeOS has supported drivers for NE2000 ethernet NIC's even though ATM/Gigabit/FDDI is faster. The BeOS supports IDE even though SCSI is the superior choice. A SoundBlaster16 compatible sound card isn't the best, but nearly everyone has one.

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