On Thu, 2003-09-25 at 12:58, Stephen Smoogen wrote: > Ok I lets just cut to the chase.. what is the price people are willing > to pay and how many machines are you going to have? Then figure out how > many others you would need to sell at that price for RH to become > profitable and grow (going off of SEC filings or whatnot). What people *say* they're willing to pay, and what they'll pay when it actually comes down to it, are two totally different things. Don't you think Red Hat marketing would've picked the perfect price for Red Hat Linux that would've maximized sales already? To be honest, the only reason I ever paid for Red Hat was to support Red Hat financially. You don't make a business plan of charitable souls like me, tho. ;-) And even I only ever paid for .0 releases, since I found paying a new OS every 6 months a bit insane. When you consider that the only real value you get from a distro like Red Hat over others is support, the price of RHEL actually isn't that bad at all. A price *I'd* be willing to pay, for a *consumer* OS, and others might be willing to pay, if you want a random guess? $150 for a base OS, and free point releases for a couple years. Is that financially feasible for Red Hat, who doesn't sell extra products on top of the OS like an Office or anything? Prolly not... -- Sean Middleditch <elanthis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.
