- Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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The palest ink is better than the best memory - Chinese proverb
Red Hat share price passes Microsoft's
LINUX VENDOR Red Hat hit a milestone yesterday when its share price rose above Microsoft's.
True, Microsoft has a hell of a lot more shares out there in the marketplace and its own share price has not been that healthy over the past year, but this is being seen by analysts as a great day for the free software outfit.
Since 2001 Red Hat has experienced more than 600 per cent growth, while during the same period Microsoft has experienced negative growth in its share price.
Actually 2001 was a darn good time to invest in Red Hat. In those days its stock was worth a piddling $3 per share. Now Red Hat stock is priced at over $28 per share.
Analysts say that while Red Hat's share price has been higher than today what is important is that actually it is worth the figure.
Red Hat's profits come from server support subscriptions and it is a stable maker of earnings.
The only thing that could go wrong for Red Hat is if other Linux suppliers come along and offer lower subscription fees.
However to balance that, Red Hat is making a killing with virtualisation and its Java application server business in Jboss.
According to CIO Today, Red Hat could make out like a bandit on the craze for Cloud computing. µ
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Red Dwarf?
With all the you too can be a stock trader websites that exist is anyone not surprised there was a stock bubble and improper valuation occurs?
Leave stock prices and true company value to the experts not people in masses who cannot balance their own checkbooks who buy into stocks based solely on I hear its good rather than company performance and future competition/outlook.
But never underestimate stupid people in large numbers.
Stock Bubble? - Large groups of stupid people investing looking to get rich quick overnight.
Housing Bubble? - Large groups of stupid people buying at over inflated prices not in line with income ratios looking to get rich quick.
Leave it to the experts people. Getting rich quick is luck. Getting rich over time is being smart.
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but this has no relevance at all. If Red Hat's market capitalization surpassed Microsoft's that would be news.
Next week, will we be excited if the number of Red Hat licenses sold surpases the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Writing stories comparing unrelated numbers makes Red Hat and Linux supporters seem amateurish. If the news day is that slow, just don't write anything.
For the record, I am a supporter of many Linux distributions, Red Hat among those.
Market cap not share price matters.
Journalism? Bring back Mike and Sylvie
Sheesh, I'm dumbfounded by the MS apologists comments before this - here's a quick quiz for those who believe that the only thing that matters is "Market Cap":
1. If I purchased 1000 MS share & 1000 Redhat shares in 2001 & sell them today - Which company has provided the best ROI during this time?
2. How has MS's "Market Cap" benefitted it's share price?
3. Now if MS *didn't* have the ability to manipulate/abuse it's ill gotten monopoly position in the market, do you think their stocks would be worth *anything* now? (based on the quality of the products they have released during that time?)
Seriously, based on the quality of their software over the last 10 years, & without abusing market position/political manipulation, MS probably wouldn't have even survived the new millenium - pretty pathetic seeing comments supporting the biggest convisted felon of the last 20 years...
And it is interesting that Apple's market cap is 75% of MSFT.
It seems that Apple did have a good quarter just now. I wonder why Nick has deep-sixed the news. Probably took a six himself
Didn’t Oracle try that with its “Unbreakable Linux”—offer exactly the same thing as Red Hat, at a lower price?
So, heard of many customers using “Unbreakable Linux”?
I didn’t think so.
The temperature in Birmingham, Alabama is 73 degrees and it's only 67 in New York, New York.
The end is nigh for The Big Apple.
It's very naive to believe that market capitalisation on it's own is a measurement of success. Equally naive is to cite share price and growth in share price as a measure of success. These are both measures that can be manipulated and are meaningless in isolation.