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Mandrakesoft: half-year results ending March
MandrakeSoft has released
its half-year results ending March 31. Of note is a 20% increase in
revenue and 37% increase in gross profits as compared the comparable period
last year.
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Mandrakesoft: half-year results ending March Posted Apr 23, 2004 9:12 UTC (Fri) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] "So instead of publishing a negative result for the last quarter, why not combine these results with the previous quarter and announce a positive half-year result instead!"I must say, for my favorite distro to resort to this kind of dotcom/enron accounting, I'm very disappointed. I always tought that keeping true to the Free Software spirit also included honesty. It would be interesting, if the editor of the Distributions page could dig into what's going on inside the company right now. In addition to this financial report a big question among many users is, how could the fsck-up with mirrors possibly happen, why didn't anyone seem to care to fix it, why is it still not working properly weeks later (at the same time there is a new kernel out, amongst other real vulnerabilities) and why doesn't anyone in the company management think this is worth any kind of apology?
Mandrakesoft: half-year results ending March Posted Apr 23, 2004 11:24 UTC (Fri) by pambon (guest, #21137) [Link] "So instead of publishing a negative result for the last quarter, why not combine these results with the previous quarter and announce a positive half-year result instead!"'cause the company's listed! stockeholders want positive news! It would be interesting, if the editor of the Distributions page could dig into what's going on inside the company right now. In addition to this financial report a big question among many users is, how could the fsck-up with mirrors possibly happen, why didn't anyone seem to care to fix it, why is it still not working properly weeks later (at the same time there is a new kernel out, amongst other real vulnerabilities) and why doesn't anyone in the company management think this is worth any kind of apology? explanation and apologies already made on mandrakeclub!
Mandrakesoft: half-year results ending March Posted Apr 23, 2004 12:26 UTC (Fri) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] explanation and apologies already made on mandrakeclub!Not really (if you mean the link I just provided). It was an explanation on what had gone wrong accompanied with a message that they won't even care to fix it because they are eating Easter eggs. What I'm talking about is an explanation on how it was possible in the first place for someone to make such a big mistake. and more importantly, what on earth have they been doing for the last three weeks that is more important than fixing it. It's still broken! I'm not personally that mad about the mess, not like some people who lost a customer because of this. For me, it's just a question about reconfiguring urpmi, once I find a mirror that works. It just makes me worried, that the company producing my distro a) apparently lacks any kind of procedural safeguards or quality assurance to prevent this and b) isn't being straight about it's financial pr. Mandrake has had problems with quality in the past, with slightly buggy releases, and especially telling has been the fact that most bugs could be found in their own Control Center. The thing that is different about this mirroring fiasco is, that it shows that some people don't seem to have the slightest idea about how to handle a release, and what's worse, those same people seem to have the authority to go ahead implementing their crazy ideas. You simply are not supposed to make these kinds of big changes when your beta has finished and the ISO:s are on their way to the factory. That's the idea with testing. You make changes first, then test. Now it seems that this warly guy has tought: "phew am I glad that beta is finally over, now I finally have time to mess with the mirrors". (And yes, I'm calling the "community edition" "beta", because that seems to be how they tought about it at Mandrake.) For my personal needs Mandrake is still the best fit. It's a perfect combination of vast amounts of very recent software, especially for a desktop user. Out of the commercial distros it's also the most Free Software -spirited. But I'm just sad to see such apparent unproffessionalism coming from the same place.
Mandrakesoft: half-year results ending March Posted Apr 25, 2004 14:09 UTC (Sun) by klog (guest, #19514) [Link] Well duh !Just *maybe* because they are a French company, reporting results according to French law by any chance? I just hate to break the news that the world is bigger than the US. Only 10 companies report quarterly earnings in France.
Mandrakesoft: income very uneven Posted Apr 23, 2004 12:36 UTC (Fri) by grantingram (guest, #18390) [Link] If I recall correctly Mandrake releases about every six months and their income peaks after they have released a new version.For the last quarter they didn't have a major offical relase so their income would be correspondingly low. 9.2 was released in November 2003 and 10.0 official is only just out. The point being that it is perhaps not unreasonable to report a half yearly figure, it's what I would do!
Mandrakesoft: income very uneven Posted Apr 25, 2004 8:07 UTC (Sun) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] Sure. Maybe the comparison to Enron is not fair, but this kind of thing is the way companies used to do it during the dotcom bubble, and I never liked it. Of course I understand what the point is about reporting it this way. It's just that suddenly changeing the format of their quarterly report, and pretending there is nothing new about it, "this is how we have always done it", doesn't look straigth to me. They could have done the same thing, "look how good we are doing with this years figures", and then added a note what the last quarter figures are.In fact, the reason I would have liked to see the last quarter numbers is that if I'm doing the subtracting correctly (from the previous report) it seems that they are not that much on the negative anyway. So it was also a bit of curiosity. Hiding information just isn't a good strategy in this community. It would be nice if Gael and the other founders could educate their accountants a little on this one.
Mandrakesoft: half-year results ending March Posted Apr 26, 2004 17:37 UTC (Mon) by jlm (guest, #464) [Link] Ingo,The reason why we published the semester numbers is that the semester is the right period to evaluate the company performance: we produce a new version every 6 months. So if you look to the former announcement, we usually communicate on: Any one can make its own calculation or check the quaterly numbers on the financials number page (investors section). It would be of little significance to give also the quarterly numbers for this announcement. Jacques Le Marois
Good News, and logic Posted Apr 26, 2004 16:35 UTC (Mon) by Manwe (guest, #21195) [Link] For those who critic Mandrakesoft, remember that they mustmake money to get a positive situation again. They have lost many when the Texas Pacific Group (TPG) take But they didn't thought that it could be possible to go back They go back to 50 employes and work as hard as possible.
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