[kwlug-disc] How Canonical makes money ...

[John Van Ostrand]

----- "unsolicited" <unsolicited at swiz.ca> wrote:
> That's what Red Hat did, though, did they not? And they've been pretty
> successful? Profitable, even? Eventually?

Red Hat's financials say they have revenue of $541M for subscriptions, that means support, and $111M for training and services. Profit was $78M in 2009. And it looks like they've been profitable since 2005 (the last figures given in the report I'm reading.) It's pretty good that it sees 12% net profit.

I'm inferring from the text in the report that $45M was training and $66M for consulting and engineering services. They make money from OEMs (presumably IBM, HP, Dell, etc.) for engineering services and from large customers. Both want functional changes to the software.

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John Van Ostrand 
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