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

[unsolicited]

John Van Ostrand wrote, On 05/15/2010 2:58 PM:
> ----- "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.

So, the key, for Red Hat, if not the space, would seem to be hw vendor 
buy in for a reasonably consistent revenue stream. And I guess they 
would be somewhat entrenched - i.e. it would probably take some doing 
for Canonical to get themselves in as well, if not instead, of Red Hat.

I wonder what it would take for Canonical to accomplish that, or, what 
other vendors are out there they could get sufficient traction with.

Contrast this with, I suppose, Novell / Suse. Also, IIRC, profitable. 
But, I guess, somewhat more diversified.