A million copies is likely very generous. We do not have their number in front of us, perhaps we could be thankful that they are making a profit. keith smith wrote: > I don't get it. What real R&D is there for a distribution? At $40.00 > retail RH gets about $20.00. A few $ for a box and a few disks and a > small manual. Maybe $5.00 in direct cost. > > Most of the real production is free. M$ made millions+++++ selling > DOS for $30.00 a pop. > > Look at the Debian model. A good distribution. Package management is > its selling point. It is not nicely packaged, however it is good.... if > you have some understanding of how to configure it. Debian is not > commercial. I don'tknow a single person that has paid for Debian, Yet > They Survive.... > > Look at Mandrake. It installed on my laptop and _everything_ works. > I've heard some grumbling about $ from them........ I'll be they keep > selling a boxed version. > > From my limited knowledge of Linux, I feel relatively confident that > with $5000.00 worth of equipment, a DSL connection and two other fellas, > we could product a nice distribution of Linux that would be somewhat > easy to install and comprehensive. > > Given my model, A million copies sold at $10.00 each (about $19.99 > retail) with $300,000 in cost would create a nice cash flow wouldn't you > say? > > Keith > > > > > */david uhlman /* wrote: > > One only need to look as far as Redhat's sec filings to see that retail > costs them more than it makes them. Their last 10K and recent 8K really > show the difference though. > > Revenue in thousands > (Subscription & service) > Enterprise technologies $14,918 $12,289 $6,694 > Retail 3,121 4,462 2,941 > Embedded 490 646 761 > > (Service) > Enterprise technologies 9,147 9,039 9,993 > Embedded development services 1,173 746 845 > > COGS > (subscription) > Enterprise technologies and > retail 2,220 2,974 1,930 > Embedded 90 129 129 > > (service) > Enterprise technologies 4,976 4,865 4,629 > Embedded development services 695 784 931 > > Research and development 6,104 5,779 4,817 > > In a nutshell there R&D costs continue to rise for consumer Redhat while > there retails revenues declined by a 20%. Enterprise services account > for $25mil l, retail $3.2mill down 20% from last year. > > I think as well that a redhat based project that aims for more stability > than fedora will emerge off of the RH ES platforms source rpms > repository. All it really needs is a packger and installer, say > anaconda. > > A lot more Linux companies are going to be moving to this model like it > or not. If you want nicely packaged and iso-ed distributions you are > going to have to pay for that in the future, basic economics. There will > always be debian but that doesn't necessarily meet the needs of many of > the current redhatters. > > I will say though that redhat needs to be careful not to alienate too > much the base of developers and contributors that have made it so > successful. I think you will see some concessions on this front over the > next year or two. > > Sincerely, > David Uhlman > CTO 50KM Inc. > > --------------------------------------------------- > PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us > To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Do you Yahoo!? > The New Yahoo! Shopping > > - with improved product search -- .-. =------------------------------ /v\ ----------------------------= Robert Wultsch // \\ robert.wultsch@asu.edu Linux User /( )\ AIM:sheepsleep7 Don't fear the penguins ^^-^^ (602)6927564