[WOS] Linux-Investoren

[Detlef Borchers]

Das hier ist ein Ausschnitt aus dem Info-Letter von Red Herring.
Sozusagen die Sicht der anderen Seite. Mit frdl. Genehmigung von Nicole
Sperling... d.h. mit geflissentlicher Beachtung der Links oder so.
--Detlef



LINUX CONTAGION

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- When Bruce Twickler began
shopping his company around to different investment banks
early last year, he kept hearing the same response: "Yeah,
it's interesting. Let's raise your private round and take
you public next year." But Mr. Twickler knew that Linux
fever was catching in 1999, and he needed to get his company
out there before the market became saturated. So he took his
offering to W.R. Hambrecht, the maverick investment bank
that's attempting to turn the IPO process on its head with
its innovative OpenIPO model. What Mr. Twickler discovered
was that Hambrecht already had three research analysts
covering Linux, and they got his reasoning for wanting to go
public sooner rather than later -- in fact, they wanted to
accelerate the process. 

* W.R. Hambrecht invites all to its Salon.com IPO.
  http://www.redherring.com/insider/1999/0617/inv-salon.html
  
* Viva Las Vegas! Linux goes mainstream.
  http://www.redherring.com/insider/1999/1119/news-comdexmood.html

"Hambrecht really understood the market, and that provided
us with many benefits," said Mr. Twickler. "We wouldn't have
been put on top of other investment banks' programs."

As well, Mr. Twickler was really impressed with the research
support Hambrecht has provided (and will continue to
provide). "There is no comparable overall market view
anywhere that has as comprehensive and insightful a view of
what Linux is all about," said Mr. Twickler. "In terms of
understanding the market and where we're going, as well as
our goals and objectives, they will provide us with the best
coverage." 

OPEN SESAME
But beyond Hambrecht's clear understanding of Linux, to Mr.
Twickler the most attractive feature of the OpenIPO process
was the ability to involve the open-source community in the
offering -- it was the only way to give his loyal audience
an opportunity to buy into something they had essentially
created. What Andover.net is all about is an aggregated
network of Linux and open-source sites for hard-core
developers, programmers, and anyone else interested in this
fledging movement. 
  
* The Red Eye goes Dutch with Bill Hambrecht. 
  http://www.redherring.com/insider/1999/1216/news-redeye.html

In 1996, when his software company was earning less money
than his first Web site (www.davecentral.com, a shareware
archive), Mr. Twickler decided to rededicate his resources
from software development tools to building a community of
Web sites for Linux, a movement he thought had some legs.
Since that time Andover.net has built a network of 14 sites,
acquiring some but building most. And the results are rather
impressive. The company claims to receive more than 2
million page views monthly, and visitors to its sites spend
an average of eight hours per month on them. By comparison,
most visitors to Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) spend 12 minutes
a month on the site. 

EXPANSION PLANS
Moving forward, the company plans to build out its
advertising strategy as well as it e-commerce and corporate
service revenue models. This includes expanding the
offerings available on its Thinkgeek Web site, launched in
October. As well, the company plans to create a corporate
service portal staffed by Linux support representatives. 

And how does Mr. Twickler think Linux will fare in the next
year? "When you consider the number of companies dedicated
to Linux and how many public companies existed six months
ago compared with how many will be around six months from
now, it's going to be huge," he said. "There is just going
to be such a large amount of capital applied to making Linux
commercially viable."

That's good to hear from the guy who's betting the farm on
Linux. Now we'll just have to wait and see what happens.


Wizards of OS Mailinglist.  To unsubscribe mailto:majordomo@mikrolisten.de