Yahoo!/ZDNet: Red Hat IPO on deck

"From a financial perspective, Red Hat's a much safer IPO bet than some of the other Internet and retailing companies that have gone public in the past month.

"In the year ended Feb. 28, Red Hat reported a loss of $91,000, or 1 cent a share, on sales of $10.8 million. That's up from sales of only $5.1 million in 1998.

"In its latest quarter, the Durham, N.C.-based company checked in with a loss of $2 million, or 9 cents a share, on sales of $2.7 million."

"But before anyone gets too excite about the IPO, keep in mind that Be Inc. (Nasdaq:BEOS - news), which also offers an alternative operating system, was practically laughed off the Street on July 21 when it went public."

Complete story.