4 ms·
Always funny how VA Research started out as a company that sold computers and had an absolutely bonkers 1990s IPO[1], only to wind up as a company that just sol
by ben1040 11y ago
Always funny how VA Research started out as a company that sold computers and had an absolutely bonkers 1990s IPO[1], only to wind up as a company that just sold T-shirts to people who use computers.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Initial_public_offering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Initial_public_offering
- rwmj 11y agoAnyone have the inside story about why VA stopped selling Linux computers? It seems to me a business which could have been huge.
- dagw 11y agoBasically Dell, HP, IBM and everybody else all of a sudden also started offering Linux systems and the competition got too stiff driving down profits and market shares, leading to huge losses in the hardware part of the company. Combine this with the fact that they at the time had a large and seeming solid web and software side business it made sense to focus on that and simply drop the hardware, instead of trying to go head to head with Dell/HP/IBM.
- ben1040 11y agoVA's original raison d'etre was that commodity systems manufacturers like Dell didn't make any effort to support Linux, and they often shipped machines that had hardware that wasn't workable under Linux. If you wanted a known-good supported hardware configuration and you didn't want to build it yourself, then VA was one of your few options. They also were pretty expensive machines, IIRC. There was a tide change around 2000-2001 where those manufacturers began caring about Linux, at least with regard to business customers. Dell's economies of scale and brand basically meant they could steamroll VA.
- gaius 11y agoWhat's the market for people who want boxes running Linux, but don't want their own installation?
- normloman 11y agoPerhaps they were hoping of building that market. It was feasible that through some effort, you could convert enough every day windows users to Linux, based on the lower price, reliability, and low maintenance (no spyware). In retrospect it was a foolish idea.