Am Sam, 2003-08-02 um 05.07 schrieb Stephen Smoogen: > On Fri, 2003-08-01 at 20:49, Tim Kossack wrote: > > Am Sam, 2003-08-02 um 04.06 schrieb Stephen Smoogen: > > > On Fri, 2003-08-01 at 19:46, Tim Kossack wrote: > > > > Am Fre, 2003-08-01 um 21.51 schrieb FÃliciano Matias: > > > > > Le ven 01/08/2003 Ã 17:53, Tim Kossack a Ãcrit : > > > > > sorry to be so stubborn, but i would really be interested why red hat > > seems to have given up making money with non-corporate endusers while > > other distros seems to see a market there, ahving first successes? > > > > Lets see Mandrake is still in Bankruptcy and the last letter didnt seem > to indicate it was doing much better. mandrake did the mistake imo to not agressivly pursuing the corporate market with high-priced software where _currently_ the most money is made by the linux-vendors > Lindows hasnt shown it makes any > money.. if you mean that lindows hasn't published any numbers, that might get interpreted in them earning money or loosing money. in either case, if they currently don't earn much or maybe even loose money is not that important because... > it is funded by a guy who made a lot of money during the stock > boom who has been paying manufacturers to put its os on them. i think that mr. robertson, whatever one might think about him, sees certainly a business here _in the mid- to longterm_, means even if he currently needs to put more money in lindows than he gets out, he seems to be quite sure that this is necessary. i don't think this guy's is nuts and throwing his money out of the window. > > > > race before it really started. maybe they have already in abandoning the > > > > classic boxed retailchannel! > > > > > > the number of people who buy boxed sets through retail are 1/10,000 of > > > the people who run linux. I doubt very much that any Linux vendor has > > > made enough off of box sets in the last years to pay for the bandwidth > > > that the FTP servers use. I think Mandrake made 10x more money off of > > > their online club than they did through retail. Remember that if a box > > > set were to cost 40 Euro, the shipping company sees about 8 Euro of that > > > through the various sales channels, and the cost of manufacturing is > > > about 7 Euros. > > > > ok, but that doesn't mean that red hat couldn't make money with support > > (and/or one version without the goodies for free, one to download with > > the goodies for some $), or club (mandrake) or store (lindows) etc.. > > in order to convince people getting support etc...(see above). > > but obviously red hat seems to have given up making money on endusers, > > and rhl is-as you say-simply a communityproduct for geeks (like you and > > me), providing them in turn with manpower, ideas and bugfixing. > > what a pity-imo, they def. should try making more of it! > > > > If you are sure it is so easy.. why not take the Red Hat distro without > the logos and try it yourself? Set up a current server to emulate RHN > and see how many people you convince to pay for it. uh, you know, if red hat would give me some of their cash as well as access to their technology (installer etc.) i might exactly do that. but seriously, it is totally secondary if they (or me) could earn money on endusers _right now_, but if it isn't necessary for the biggest commercial vendor of linux to pursue a mid-to longtermstrategy here, because the costs they need to pay for some licenses as well as ironing out the remaining edges in order to stay competative with lindows etc. stands just imo and afaik in no relation to the result which is having a foot in the door if the enduser market picks up. but anyway, it seems they're disagreeing, therefore i rest my case. ps: i apologize for the double posts, but i've troubles with evolution. trying my best to avoid them!
