Mandriva reports its 3rd Quarter results

I think that Mandriva and Canonical are a much better side-by-side "small" business comparison at this moment in time. Which of these two companies is doing things the right way to build a sustainable business? Which one is moving forward towards profitability? Unfortunately we don't have any concrete information on Canonical's operational losses like we do with Mandriva so we can't draw the most interesting comparisons concerning each companies ability to manage their resources so that they are vectoring towards profitability.

More generally I don't think you or I hold enough standing for our personal opinion about the profitability of the Linux Desktop. Here let me quote someone who should have a better idea of the business opportunities of the linux desktop market.

quoting: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10075890-92.html :
"I don't think it will possible to make a lot of money, or maybe any money, selling the desktop," Shuttleworth said. "We're not going to try to make money selling the desktop. We force ourselves to look to services-oriented business models."

Is Canonical taking on the Desktop market? really? Shuttleworth even says that you can't make money by selling a Desktop operating system....and that Canonical is going to profit from a services oriented business. That statement is just the first of many interesting comparisons with Mandriva's business approach on how to build a sustainable business.

So what are Canonical's profitable services? Does Canonical's Landscape service count as Desktop oriented service? Is that service's revenue vectoring towards being profitable in a way that can drive Canonical's desktop oriented work? How does it directly compare to Mandriva's pulse service offering?

Any idea what the revenue versus expenses look like for the Canonical support offerings for Dell hardware? How many people who buy Ubuntu branded Dell laptops or desktops are buying the extended support contract from Canonical? Is that support offering a profit center? How much money does Canonical make or lose on each Ubuntu install system purchased at Dell? What's the profit margin there, and is it big enough to be a profit center which drives other work Canonical is doing?

Beyond the desktop, how both companies are approaching the netbook oem opportunity is another interesting comparison. Mandriva is in the oem netbook space as well as Canonical.

ref: http://www.liliputing.com/2008/09/first-look-at-the-emtec...

-jef