This week yet another major global IT vendor will launch a product based on Linux – the HP Touchpad, which looks quite promising from early reviews. Even so, it is ironic that I still hear the following comment from a number of investors and business people:
“Open source is great, but you can’t make any money with it.”
While for some reason this sentiment has existed as long as open source software has been in existence, the facts don’t support it; in fact, the facts expose it to be a statement hovering between unbelievable and ridiculous. Red Hat will exceed $1 Billion dollars in revenue this year. Its investors have been richly rewarded over the past decade with more than an 8X return over the S&P 500.
