Red Hat's number one

Single share price argument

First, I am a avid GNU/Linux user for past 8 years, but there is no denying the fact that Steven is trying to make some sort of argument here by saying that Microsoft is trading at lower price than Redhat. Anyone who understands little bit of Share markets will know, how utter crap this argument is.

For example since Microsoft went public they split their shares about 8 times (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/262875.stm). In above article BBC reports, Microsoft's shares were being traded at $162 before the split and that article is dated January 1999. In a nutshell, you can't compare single share price of two different equities and make some argument.

A Lot of Misunderstanding

Steven continues to be a lighting rod here.

I see a lot of you misunderstanding the whole point here.

Steven isn't saying that Red Hat is valued more by the Stock Market than Microsoft is. He is saying that Red Hat shares are going up, while the Microsoft share price is going down.

What this means is that if you own stock, your Microsoft shares are losing you money, while your Red Hat shares are making you money. The reason for that is presumably that Red Hat is making money or increasing in value, while Microsoft is losing money or value.

He posits that the reason for this is that the C level executives out there are buying into Red Hat's value proposition. He quotes a survey to back that up.

For me, what is so scary is that a lot of these comments who claim to be from 'C' level exec's are still in the "Nobody ever got fired for buying..." camp. Did you ever hear of the London Stock Exchange?

That kind of thinking only makes sense if you are a Microsoft employee.

It's only an uninformed opinion of mine, but judging by the comments I see here, the recession isn't over. Several of your companies are going to be down the tubes soon.

I hope for all our sakes that you "C level" folks are not really in charge, because if you are, the USA is toast.

Picking the most expensive least performing solution is not a good way to run a business.

Microsoft doesn't make the best of anything. They don't even want to. They try make an adequate product, then market like crazy. If an adequate product is good enough for your business, and you can get it cheaply enough, then Microsoft is right for you.

If you need quality, then you should not settle for a Microsoft product.

If you need hand holding, then Red Hat or Novell might be good choices.

If you need high reliability, then you are talking very expensive hardware, and you may need to be using IBM or Sun type hardware. Software with that will be just a minor expense.

Maybe you never got fired for accepting a slick sales pitch, but some of you should have been.

CIO's & Market Caps

Steve, too bad your article ends on a bad note. I echo the other comments re: Share price vs. Market cap - this was a very un-educated statement and devalued your entire argument.

Although, as a CTO I agree with many things you've said - I've been in the industry for 22 years, and the biggest challenge with any Linux solution has ALWAYS been the CIO. You must be working in a different field than I have been.

Most CIO's factor in risk, a CIO won't loose their job for picking "Microsoft", and Linux - no matter how good or cheap the solution, introduces risk and support issues.

CTO's and I.T Management have always been more inclined towards Linux, IF they have the appropriate staff (argument #2).

Although I agree that Linux market share is steadily increasing which I'm very happy - I absolutely DO NOT agree that CIO's are embracing this - to the contrary.