On Wed, Feb 07, 2001 at 02:36:44PM -0800 or thereabouts, Michael Hasenstein wrote:
No. The sales have climed steadily. It's just that when suse started in the us people thought they'd add an incentive for retail by selling the box cheap to them, so that they could add a huge markup and make a nice profit. It turned out they only added a very small markup and suse linux was WAY too cheap in this country.
I agree with you here Michael. Now, SuSE is comparable to other distros, cost-wise... for the power pack, they just don't have the engineering behind them. <g>
Actually, the business climate is still very good. All the big guys are moving into Linux rapidly. It's just that the consumers don't buy as many boxes here, plus the market is split much more than anywhere else - because EVERYONE wants to be in the us market so here's the most competition for box sales.
I originally purchased 6.4 with all the goodies (equivalent to the power pack with the 7 disks, manuals, etc.) for about $20 US at Best Buy retailers here. Other distros charged more, even back then. IBM is sinking in $5 billion, and many others are committed, especially now that 2.4 can give enterprise a run in that arena. -- Best regards, Gary Today's thought: My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.