02.06.07
Red Hat’s Stock Not Affected by Novell’s Blunder
When the Novell/Microsoft deal was struck, Red Hat’s stock was struck as well. And yet, it turns out that this momentary decline was a temporary one whilst there’s no apparent long-term volatility. Not even Oracle’s elbow could destroy the prospects of Red Hat, according to one analyst.
Stimson considers the competition from Oracle and Microsoft/Novell “a nonevent so far” as he’s seen little evidence that Oracle is winning support business away from Red Hat.
Dana of ZDNet concurs. He even shares some interesting figures.
- Oracle — Down 3.56%
- Microsoft — Up 2.7%
- Novell — Up 8.13%
- RedHat — Up 36.82%
Red Hat’s last financial report was no exception.
“Open-source is not going away and Red Hat is the leader,” Chowdhry said in a telephone interview. “Oracle is a nonevent when it comes to open source.”
Perhaps Linux companies are as robust as the platform and software which they sell. It is worth mentioning, however, that Red Hat has a series of ongoing buybacks, just like Microsoft.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.