LA Times: Pulling Off a Hat Trick

Thanks to Skip Collins for this link.

"Surveying the company's brand-new office where rows of computers stand ready for a new crop of employees and a work crew outside plants bushes in the sultry North Carolina sun, Red Hat Software Inc. Chief Executive Bob Young has a frightening thought: How can he pay for all this by selling free software?"

"So why should anybody pay Red Hat $80 a copy? Today people pay the money for Red Hat's documentation and its technical support. Tomorrow, says Young, people will buy Red Hat because it's the trusted brand. The same reason Heinz has a dominant share of the catsup market with a product hardly distinguishable from its competitors."

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