“When Corel bought Inprise in February for $1 billion, it became
the Microsoft of the Linux world….”
“Now, a couple of bad months erases neither the huge returns
Linux stocks have run up since their IPOs in 1999, nor the
operating system’s genuine technological merit. But Linux’s winter
of discontent may serve as a reminder that its market power is
finite.”
“Like SGI, Corel and Inprise have run to Linux in hopes of
finding a haven from what is widely perceived as failure in the
marketplace. It might not work, according to Gartner Group analyst
George Weiss. “Linux is becoming the de facto cure for
bolstering either weak business models or no business models,”
he says.”