The investment firm that manages the private fortune of Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell invested $99.5 million in Red Hat Inc., the world's largest distributor of the Linux computer operating system, according to regulatory filings. The investment by MSD Capital was the largest by any single company from a $600 million bond issue in January 2004. Raleigh-based Red Hat disclosed Dell's investment in an April 27 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day and MSD spokesman Todd Fogarty declined to comment Tuesday on Dell's investment.
Earlier this week , markjensen linked to an article about Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Red Hat's Matthew Szulik meeting back in late March. Does this latest news further anyone else's suspicions that Microsoft is shopping for a top name corporate driven linux distro to buy in order to compete with Novell's purchase of Suse? Consider that shares of Red Hat are almost down to their 52 week low, and it makes me think that we'll soon be seeing Microsoft Linux on the retail shelves.
News source: MSNBC
Neowin member shanepitman contributed to this article
Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day and MSD spokesman Todd Fogarty declined to comment Tuesday on Dell's investment.
Earlier this week , markjensen linked to an article about Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Red Hat's Matthew Szulik meeting back in late March. Does this latest news further anyone else's suspicions that Microsoft is shopping for a top name corporate driven linux distro to buy in order to compete with Novell's purchase of Suse? Consider that shares of Red Hat are almost down to their 52 week low, and it makes me think that we'll soon be seeing Microsoft Linux on the retail shelves.
News source: MSNBCNeowin member shanepitman contributed to this article
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And this is the best part, when they start writing their own linux distro they will modify the code so much that the linux programmers wont be able to keep up with the code changes...it will be impossible. Then all the linux guys programming will quit because it will be to much work and no longer fun. CHECK AND MATE!!! This is the genius of microsoft, this is why I own their shares.
Thats the way I read it. Regardless, (again this being all speculation regardings MS + Linu
As far as "all the linux guys programming will quit because it will be to much work and no longer fun", not gonna happen. If anything, it will be a massive rallying of the troops, and THAT will be entertaining to watch
Hard Ball always rears it's ugly head.
They wont.
I saw this cooperation coming a while ago, but then again I'm a lot smarter than most other posters on neowin
With Intel and IBM building virtualization on the CPU, the question will no longer be "What OS will this computer run?", the new question is "How many copies of Windows 2003 and how many copies of RHEL would you like to run on that CPU simultaneously?"
If they sell a decent desktop distro they would have to price it very low. ($30?) to compete with the likes of Linspire and SuSe while at the same time making is superior to the free ones like Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora. If they do that then the are going to be detracting from there sales of Windows XP Home/Pro. Not to mention there flagship product Office will not run on Linux without WINE or the like.
I just don't see how they make money on the deal. I understand what one of the above posters said about learning to interoperate with Linux. I think Balmer even mentioned it at WinHEC. I still don't see them developing their own brand of Linux. Maybe some API's or interoperability tools or the like.
Viva la collectivism, let's follow in the great footsteps of great leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
You don't like individualism and personal independence - fine, just leave me and all those who value individual liberty the hell alone from your "revolution".
That's right, they are lame because they are successful and well paid. An economic system that rewards inovation and hard work. What an awful system.
I don't know what you would want replace it with but leave me out. There is only one place to go when you are broke, to work.
Very doubtful. Why would they want to compete with their Windows Server line? Unless they abandon Windows Server, my bet is that we will not see a Microsoft Linux.
kad.au: what are you talking about? Suse and Fedora Core are pretty much at par with each other Desktop wise. Suse uses KDE and Fedora Core leans towards Gnome. KDE has more features, but Gnome is more stable and performs better. You can switch the windows manager in FC to KDE and have the exact same interface.
You actually think Ms couldn't get developers? They'll be pounding down the door
Microsoft should develope a Windows/Linux distro. I bet you top dollar that they'll make it act exactly like Windows. Now how many people would that bring in? Millions. I'de buy it in a heartbeat.
Why would they have to worry about all the different distros out there? That's exactly what the Linux world needs. A unified distro. Under 1 name. Windows/Linux for the desktop..Windows/Linux for the server base..etc..They probably COULD call it Lindows...
No one in the Linux community is unified. Sure, say what you will.."it's about choice and freedom to do what you want, blah, blah, blah" "I want my OS my way"
Hey, that's great...but you want the world to accept Linux? How? The average person has no idea what they should get. You got what, a gazillion different distro's out there.? Please spare me. Face it, you got too much competition between yourselves to ever be accepted by the "real" community. Average Ma and Pa.
The question is how many Windows consumers would be prepared to install a Microsoft/Linux distro? My bet...lot's
How many computers do you think will come preinstalled with Windows/Linux? You people have no idea how crushing this could be to the Linux Community.
Last edited by 49208 on 13 May 2005 - 22:37
As an avid Linux user, I can tell you that some of the reasons people use linux are to a large extent driven by mis-trust of Microsoft, and based on Microsoft's past history of creating insecure computing platforms (I tend to agree most with this sentiment). Am I saying that windows is Satan, and all of that crap so many people tend to spew out? Absolutely not! But from a standpoint of choice I can say with some small measure of authority that most of the Linux distros out there serve distinct purposes and market segments and the people who use them (while small in number) are very loyal to those companies/distros Linux fans are arguably as fanatic as Mac fans.
The whole point of the linux Kernel design is to create specific use Operating environments dependant on need and independant of onnerous licensing agreements. Web/mail servers don't necessarily need a graphical Interface, Desktop environments don't necessarily need a lot of server tools. This idea that one size fits all is pure rubbish.
Microsoft is very good at what it does; namely buying up other company's innovations or releasing products designed to undercut another company's market share, or maintaining hegemony, with a massive team of lawyers and a multi-billion dollar war-chest (MS-DOS vs. OS2, Windows vs. Mac's GUI, etc.)
If Micheal Dell is investing money into Redhat then it's very possible that this is not with Bill Gate's blessing, and he is looking for some alternative to fill his customer's needs in the server segment.
linux is a good stable OS,but the problem is the community,very scattered,they can easily be beaten,at some point they won't catch up with technological advance in the software industry.
"While small in number" That's the key. Microsoft can get ANY product it desires out to market and hit a much higher level of distibution. So, I guess, if Ms did attempt to create, market and sell a hybrid distro then would assume that Linux will forever more stay as it is now. An alternative for the "rest" of the world.
What company doesn't buy up other companies and adds them to thier mix? Good God boy, look at the world of business around you.
Who put the comment
Umm . . . my point was that Microsoft is very good at making a lot of money for itself and its shareholders (good for them), but MS has never been an innovator, just very good at borrowing ideas and often writing bloated, insecure code. That doesn't make them bad, good, evil, whatever . . . hell I'm sitting at my laptop that runs windows XP pro right now. But when I'm ready to print something later on it will go through my Debian File/Print server. Why? because I like not having to pay $300 dollars for an OS that doesn't need a 2ghz proc. and 512 MB of ram just to do simple tasks.
The tone of my previous post wasn't meant to be some sort of tired Linux vs. MS troll, I was just trying to add some observations to the mix.
[/shrug]
Not at all. How does Michael Dell's investment firm investing in Red Hat have any real relation to Microsoft wanting to buy a Linux distro? It doesn't. It would take some weird kind of logic to connect the two. This article is troll bait, plain and simple. Just read some of the idiotic comments posted here already.
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