Hard to believe, but true. Wish I had a chart of the Corel stock price but from Wikipedia[1]:
"Corel Linux, also called Corel LinuxOS, was a Debian-based operating system made by Corel that began beta testing on September 21, 1999[1] and was released to the public on November 15, 1999." ... "Corel later discontinued the distribution, but did not remove the former Corel Open Source Development website until March 2002."
So at least I did not just dream it. Did you live through that era? It was very similar to the blockchain hype but lasted a bit longer.
Edit: Confirming the Linux hype:
"Red Hat's initial public offering was on August 11, 1999. A total of 6,000,000 shares were priced at $14 ($7 post-split) per share."[2]
On January 10th, 2000, four months later the price peaked at $140, which would have netted you one of the fastest 10 baggers in history. By July of 2001 it was under $4
VA Linux is often forgotten too. Due to Linux in the name, and even a sexy ticker symbol, rose a crazy 700% for those in on the initial offer price. And there were a lot of those people because they added everyone who had their names on any software included in their Linux distribution. Myself thankfully included.
Well, this outfit sounds much more impressive than the vague prospects of Corel's Linux offering:
> Geeknet, Inc. owns the online retailer ThinkGeek and is a subsidiary of GameStop. The company was formerly known as VA Research, VA Linux Systems, VA Software, and SourceForge, Inc.
> VA Research was one of the first vendors to build and sell personal computer systems installed with the Linux operating system, as an alternative to more expensive Unix workstations that were available at the time. It was the largest vendor of pre-installed Linux computers, with approximately 20% of the Linux hardware market.
> Intel and Sequoia, along with Silicon Graphics and other investors, added an additional $25 million investment in June 1999.
> In fiscal 1999, the company's sales grew to $17.7 million, up from $5.5 million in fiscal 1998. In fiscal 2000, the company's sales were $120.3 million.
I vaguely remember that the VA Linux computers were quite inexpensive but basically unusable due to software problems. Another nail in the Linux desktop coffin.
I've heard about the distro, but not a reason why it existed or why anybody would buy it. Apparently, it was marketed for desktop use, which I guess wasn't yet universally seen as ridiculous in '99.
"Corel Linux, also called Corel LinuxOS, was a Debian-based operating system made by Corel that began beta testing on September 21, 1999[1] and was released to the public on November 15, 1999." ... "Corel later discontinued the distribution, but did not remove the former Corel Open Source Development website until March 2002."
So at least I did not just dream it. Did you live through that era? It was very similar to the blockchain hype but lasted a bit longer.
Edit: Confirming the Linux hype:
"Red Hat's initial public offering was on August 11, 1999. A total of 6,000,000 shares were priced at $14 ($7 post-split) per share."[2]
On January 10th, 2000, four months later the price peaked at $140, which would have netted you one of the fastest 10 baggers in history. By July of 2001 it was under $4
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Linux [2]https://investors.redhat.com/ir-resources/investor-faqs/when...