VA Linux Files For IPO 53
Dredd13 writes "This time, it's really official. According to this story on Yahoo! News, VA Linux Systems is filing for its IPO. Wonder how they'll handle the IPO "Friends and Family" shares considering how the Red Hat fiasco went..."
Open Sources (Score:1)
"reserved for ... open source developers ..." (Score:2)
"The underwriters have reserved for sale, at the initial public offering price up to [BLANK] shares of the common stock for employees, directors, other persons associated with us and a number of open source developers who have expressed an interest in purchasing common stock in this offering."
Wow. I wonder how I express such an interest?
IPO? sure but what are the affects? (Score:1)
The thing that this brings to the forefront of my mind is the fact that if you get involved in the stockmarket your aim as a company will shift. The shift being from the aim of turning out a quality product or service to that of raising the IPO's value and thus keeping the investors happy. But what does that do to me as a consumer? Will the company (in this case Redhat and VA) be willing to have its behavior be dictated by the stock? Will this in turn affect what the quality of the code and workman ship is?
I sincerely hope not seeing all those prime examples out there i.e. M$, Walmart and the like.
Ok those are my 2 cents, Moderate away =^)
No worse than AT&T's symbol "T" for "telephone" (Score:1)
Prior to the announcement I would also have guessed VA-something as a more intuitive symbole for VA Linux Systems. Now it's obvious they want the symbol to convey an association with Linux. They could also have been trying to avoid confusion with another company that has the ticker symbol VAL [yahoo.com]. But since the LNUX symbol wasn't already taken, they can do that.
E*Trade was not among the underwriters (Score:1)
I think a bigger hint that VA wants to improve on the RHAT IPO experience was comments by VA employees and managers at SVLUG meetings. They said they wanted to do better and asked for suggestions back in August. Undoubtedly, they will have learned from some problems and they'll encounter new ones in whatever different approach they take. So it should be interesting to watch.
so....? (Score:1)
Re:Stock Symbol (Score:1)
Who to pick for the shares.. (Score:1)
Friends and family (Score:1)
Or how about anyone who's been active on irc.debian.org #debian helping newbies?
About the IPO itself... this is fantastic. I really think this could be even more significant that Redhat. And it's a much more sound investment. VA has turned a profit; Redhat hasn't. VA is working with an industry-tested model (direct PC manufacture/delivery), whereas Redhat is in uncharted waters (selling free software). And VA has grown faster than Dell its first months.
I'm buying; I just hope I can pull together the pennies. Donations are welcome, of course
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ID's UNDER 500. (Score:1)
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what's wrong with making the kwan? (Score:1)
god, if everyone talks like this, it's no wonder that the mainstream media keeps mistaking open source guys for communists!
please, nobody take this too seriously--THIS IS NOT A FLAME, OKAY
-sh
I'm a geek. (Score:1)
... and there's plenty more where that came from.
Of course, I was one of the privileged few who E*TRADE shafted, but even if they did accept my money, I would still have no problems finding some loose change under the mattress, for this stock.
I tend to put my money where my mouth is, and I've been mostly investing in Linux-related stocks. I have a long term buy-and-hold on Applix and Corel, and so far the stocks are doing very nicely, and I certainly intend to add LNUX to my portfolio at the first convenient opportunity. As far as RHAT goes, well, the little matter I have going with EGRP makes that a bit touchy to talk about, so I better not say anything without running it by my legal-eagle, first :-)
One thing I can say is that I'm absolutely delighted to see VA Linux's selection of underwriters. I'm sure the EGRP folks understand that this IPO could've been theirs too, so they must be wondering whether or not those shennanigans were worth it.
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Re:Donald Becker. (Score:1)
Donald Becker. (Score:1)
I hope that VA Linux will not neglect to include The Don in their directed share program. It's not widely known, but Donald Becker did get an invitation for RHAT's directed share program, but he ended up joining the ranks of the privileged few who E*TRADE screwed over completely. His story is included in the feedback portion of my web site. It would be a class gesture on VA Linux's part to make sure that something like this won't fall through the cracks again.
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Here's the S-1 filing (Score:1)
I don't see any friends-and-family program in there.
One for me, please! (Score:1)
Re:The Big Picture (Score:1)
Re:Nasdaq symbol (Score:1)
Re:Geeks should invest early (Score:1)
It was "under $50,000."
As for the AOL comment, it's silly. The whole point of the stock market is that you never can tell what the AOLs are.
hopefully they'll be more careful then redhat (Score:1)
Let's hope that VA is also willing to try, and that it goes better for them.
This place reminds me of red hering sometimes (Score:1)
Speaking of Linux IPOs... (Score:2)
Seems to me the whole OpenIPO thing is a farce. It sounds nice, but it's still only for the rich folks.
Re:This place reminds me of red hering sometimes (Score:1)
Re:Nasdaq symbol (Score:1)
Stock Symbol (Score:1)
Good for them (Score:1)
I'd asked my sales guy a few months ago when they were gonna IPO, but of course he couldn't comment.
Re:Friends and family (Score:1)
Seriously, though:
Sure, VA is working with a well-tested and certainly proven model, and this move will turn profitable for them, but VA isn't pushing anything new. Red Hat had name recognition even before their ridiculous IPO, and once they filed, they benefited from the fact that there weren't any other publicly-traded free-software companies. VA can't count on the same kind of reception, since Dell and others are already dealing in Linux-compatible hardware
Be wary, in any case. Don't get too excited.
-Ben
Question: who raised RHAT? (Score:3)
-konstant
why linux sucks ... (Score:1)
1) not multi-tasking!
2) not user friendly (wtf is up with RedHat?)-> 3) User friendly my fuckin' ass!!!!
4) security? HAHA! I LAUGH AT YOUR "SECURITY"
5) no tcp/ip support AT ALL!
6) no C++ library!
7) no ability to run EXE's!!!!!
8) no console screen savers with password protection!!!
9) no USB support!
10) no support for good video cards
11) no ethernet card support AT ALL!
12) no winmodem support!!!!!!!
13) no ActiveX or DirectX support
14) no cdrom support
15) scsi support? ha! what a sham!
16) very little IDE support...
17) no support for commodore64 executables
18) mIRC does not run under X! I tried and it just core dumps! what the hell!?
19) Internet Explorer is useless under X
20) no programs compile! no such file libc6.so!?
21) no compilers
22) kernel is too hard to compile
23) when I use lilo it corrupts my MBR
24) Linus Torvalds is a nazi
25) made by children in sweatshops around the globe
26) Jeffrey Dahmer was a strong supporter of it!
27) and John Wayne Gacy
28) oh yeah, John George Haigh
29) oops, Pedro Alfonso Lopez
30) not a quality Microsoft product
for these reasons, and these reasons only, I would prefer to use OpenBSD 2.0 (unpatched, because we all know it's secure).
F
E
A
R
hah.
Nasdaq symbol (Score:3)
Using the symbol LNUX seems to try to get stock traders, especially day traders, to view Linux and VA as the same... ignorance. Maybe I'm off, but I just have an uneasy feeling towards VA.
Re:Stock Symbol (Score:1)
Re:why linux sucks ... (Score:1)
Re:Nasdaq symbol (Score:1)
On articles... well, I'm more inclined to work on my own project. I've already recieved a bit of encouragement where it counts, and maybe next year when there's enough material compiled, it can happily be slashdotted. Gotta start on the basic outlining this weekened.
VALIS (Score:1)
Re:Nasdaq symbol (Score:1)
Geeks make a few bucks of dumb suits. Story at 10
Re:why linux sucks ... (Score:1)
Re:Geeks should invest early (Score:1)
My roomate thinks Dot Planet is the next AOL, due to their rocketing network marketing stratagy.
I pointed out to him that Altavista's *free* ISP started later than them, and already has more members than them. I liked pointing it out to him.
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~^~
Re:Friends and family (Score:1)