On August 11th 1999, Red Hat Software became a publicly traded company. Most of the staff of Linux Magazine were at LinuxWorld Expo at the time of the event, and we were stunned by how well the stock market received Red Hat. The stock shot up from the $14 per share offering price to something in the neighborhood of $52. As I write this, the price is around $70, and the company is, therefore, worth $4.8 billion. Wow.
One MILLION Dollars:(L-R) DavidSifry, David LaDuke, and Art Tyde III from Linuxcare plot evil world domination schemes with LM Publisher Adam Goodman and Editor Robert McMillan.
On August 11th 1999, Red Hat Software became a publicly traded company. Most of the staff of Linux Magazine were at LinuxWorld Expo at the time of the event, and we were stunned by how well the stock market received Red Hat. The stock shot up from the $14 per share offering price to something in the neighborhood of $52. As I write this, the price is around $70, and the company is, therefore, worth $4.8 billion. Wow.
So, overnight, Linux has become a multi-billion dollar industry. On the other hand, I guess it really isn’t such an overnight phenomenon. I mean, aside from the fact that the Linux kernel itself has been actively under development for the last eight years (clearly disqualifying it from “overnight success” status), anyone who attended both LinuxWorld Expos (in March and again in August) could see that some serious money has been getting behind Linux for a while.
This LinuxWorld Expo was really impressive. It literally occupied twice as much floor space as the previous show, and the space was taken up by bigger booths, and many new…
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