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 Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject: The figures bad, the measurements good? |
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Mandriva published the results of the 1st quarter of fiscal year 2006 (October 1 - December 31, 2005).
1. Downslide of retail sales
| Quote: | | - A downward slide of sales in the retail market linked to the spread of broadband internet, |
Yes, blame it on conditions which you can't control. Sounds like a Ferengi rule. But it is not true. If the spread of broadband was the reason people declined to buy Mandriva boxes, where then is the increase of sales in the Mandriva store, where the broadband users can buy commercial PowerPacks for download?
If we pretend that people still want to buy and that the retail market has gone dry because of broadband, then the sale of these commercial downloads should have gone up in the same way the box sale went down, right?
But that is not the case.
The truth is that Mandriva 2006 was released on the base of wrong decisions. Mainly the decision to use the wrong Xorg version, caused by the partnership with Intel, and the wrong decision to let this just be without doing the best you can to fix the problem. And don't you think that the knowledge of this "quality" of the distribution spreads?
2. Marketing and communication cost for Mandriva 2006
| Quote: | | - Marketing and communication spending rose steeply due to the Mandriva Linux 2006 distribution |
Yes, of course. The buggier the product the more you have to spend for marketing & communication. Again the same cause.
And now the measurements already taken to reduce cost and to better the situation:
1. Fire the people
| Quote: | | The first set of measures aims to cut costs. They include redundancies in France and Brazil and the termination of certain expenses judged to be non-essential. |
Ok, redundancies, well why was this not detected 6 or 9 months earlier? The merger took place in early 2005 and one would have thought that redundancies were one of the first things to fix after a merger!
Now, I like this "judged to be non-essential". Especially in the light of the knowledge of who has been fired. There hasn't been an official announcement so I don't tell names and numbers. But I know at least 2 who were fired while they have been and still are essential to Mandriva, much more than most others.
But they are not essential to the corporate part of Mandriva. Go figure.
2. Switch at the top
| Quote: | | On the management front, Jacques Le Marois has decided to stand down as the Chairman of the Board, while remaining member of the Board of Directors and his seat on the Strategic Committee. He has proposed that François Bancilhon, currently the Chief Executive Officer, replace him as Chairman. |
So, Francois will be the overall chief of the tribe, CEO and Chairman? Francois has done a lot to bring Mandriva back from financial hell, thats undisputable. But he is also the one who prefers the corporate part over the community part. And with the last high ranked community advocate gone we will see, what will happen.
3. New products to raise sales
| Quote: | | - A new distribution christened Mandriva One is set for launch, aimed at individual users. |
LOL! A "new" distribution with outdated software shall bring back customers? The same customers who stayed away because of the spread of broadband connections? If so, this product should be able to put up with the other similar products in the market. There's the mother of all LiveCDs, Knoppix, sporting a DVD with all the latest software, including an installation script for putting 7GB on your hard disk (if you chose all packages). There is PCLinux, Mandriva based but with current software. Just to name 2 of them.
ONE is by far not fit to compete with them in any aspect, even if the final will show no bugs at all.
The whole report is on
http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/company/investors/newsletter/sn060307
A personal remark:
Following my critical postings lately I have been asked if I remembered that I'm on the Mandriva payroll.
Let me put this straight: If I were not and if I were not a long standing friend of Mandriva and the Mandriva community I would not care at all. I would have said farewell to the distro some time ago and turned my time and skills onto other projects - there are enough good ones out there who could use support.
So, rather than forgetting who pays me I try my best to preserve and improve rather than turn away and forget it.
wobo
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wobo
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:28 am Post subject: |
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Hey wobo, I noticed you're not the "Member of the month" anymore.
Coincidence?!?!  |
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RJ549
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:45 am Post subject: |
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| RJ549 wrote: | Hey wobo, I noticed you're not the "Member of the month" anymore.
Coincidence?!?! |
Yeah, who knows?
I was in a very dark mood when I wrote this posting because a couple of days before I heard the news about the fired people and read the farewell mails from people I have been working with for many years. And the next thing I read is this report.
wobo
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wobo
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:59 am Post subject: |
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Yep, I gathered that.
The company that I work for has gone through several "Reductions In Force" in the past couple of years. Its tough to watch skilled, hardworking people that have become friends get escorted right out the door.
This year, we are short-staffed and management has been trying to get those experienced people back. Invariably, they have moved on to something better and are not interested.
Just goes to show: "What goes around, comes around".  |
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RJ549
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:56 am Post subject: |
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There is too little information there, but one thing has called my attention:
| Quote: | | - Enterprise services are up sharply to represent 42% of consolidated sales over the quarter, compared to 24% in Q1 2004/05 |
What does it mean?. Does Mandriva sold much more corporate products this quarter?. Or did non-corporate sale fall?.
Probably something in beteween, as sales total are similar.
This numbers still amaze me. A company that has a 2 millions euros revenue can gain one quarter 1 million and lose half a million the next year, with only a 0.29% sales lost?. Have Mandriva multiply thier expense by 2.5?
Annual results could be more informative.
Javier. |
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javierrivera
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:16 am Post subject: |
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| javierrivera wrote: | | What does it mean?. Does Mandriva sold much more corporate products this quarter?. Or did non-corporate sale fall?. |
T1 2004-2005:
Entreprise Services: 302 KE (21%)
Products+Online : 1137 KE( 79%)
T1 2005-2006:
Entreprise Services: 668 KE (42%) (+366 KE, +121%)
Products+Online : 992 KE( 58%) (-145 KE, -13%)
| Quote: | | This numbers still amaze me. A company that has a 2 millions euros revenue can gain one quarter 1 million and lose half a million the next year, with only a 0.29% sales lost?. |
T1 2004-2005
Operating Revenue: 1930 KE
Operating Result: 310 KE
"expenses": 1620 KE
T1 2005-2006
Operating Revenue: 1950 KE
Operating Result: -500 KE
"expenses": 2450 KE (+830 KE, +51%) |
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manuel L
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:40 am Post subject: |
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| Nice maths . |
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javierrivera
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| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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I expect the expenses were related to the Conectiva merger somehow. This isn't inside information, just how I figure it. Can't think of anything else that cost vastly more than it did last year (no, they're not paying me _that_ much :>)
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awilliamson
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:39 am Post subject: |
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Probably. The question is if the increase in corporate sales is also a result of the adquisition (i.e. the value of the corporate conectiva bussnises in Brazil) or a real increase in Mandriva sales.
Javier. |
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javierrivera
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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I suspect it's a combination of both (Conectiva was quite business-focused so I'm sure they brought quite a few sales with them, but I've definitely heard quite a lot about new MDV corporate deployments too, principally in France).
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awilliamson
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:09 pm Post subject: Re: The figures bad, the measurements good? |
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| wobo wrote: | But I know at least 2 who were fired while they have been and still are essential to Mandriva, much more than most others.
But they are not essential to the corporate part of Mandriva. Go figure.
wobo |
A good manager would know which employees are essential and which can be disposed of:
1- those which are busy with the core activity are essential. Those which are busy with peripheral activities are the "fat" part of the company and can be disposed of in times of problems.
In the case of Mandriva, the core activity is the making of a Linux distribution, not selling things.
Hence these engineers should never have been fired
2- a good manager would also know which person are easy to replace or not. The most valuable and irreplacable employee are those with the rare technical knowledge of complexities of Mandriva linux, especially the longer they have been in the company. On the other hand salesmen and marketing people do about the same job in any field, they can be very easily replaced. So they should have instead fired non-engineers.
And finally a good manager would have looked at who is responsible for the current problems with Mandriva.
Surely, the marketing people have shown themselves to be utterly incompetent by choosing the awful name Mandriva, I know no name that could be as worse, as was so much discussed and laughed at :
- man - drivel !!!!
- also man -drive, = stuff for impotents, or for pimps, or sexual equipement for the sexually abnormal or obsessed...
A complete shame for any former-Mandrake user who knows the English language...
I don't know how people have left Mandriva for PCLinuxOS or Ubuntu, but that awful decision was the one thing too much.
And then , now that much community and testers have left the good old Mandrake, there are not enough tester, and the marketing department came up with a bad version (2006), with the insane decision of incorporating this infamous "kat" which caused so much trouble! Not too speak of the instability with all the changes in the release procedures (10.1, 2005 LE, 2006...) which each change more confusion and trouble for the users.
Not to speak of the acquisition of Conectiva: it is always difficult to absorb or merge with another company, the more when you are small, and the more when the company is so distant, so different (language, culture...). As long as they is no real need, it is much wiser not to do that kind of things, this has caused the downfall of so many companies, due to the over-ambition and megalomany of their managers. But use your capital to strengthen what you can already do well.
So if there are people who should have paid for
Mandriva's current misfortunes, they are to be found in the marketing and management area.
This evolution saddens me very much. When management and marketing can't take responsability for their mistakes and instead chopping core people such as engineers off, that may sound like the beginning of the end.
The challenge currently for the Linux destop, thus for Mandriva, is to be better than the other distribution at absorbing Microsoft end users, who are currently very open (due to products such as Firefox and OpenOffice under windows). This means being able to deliver a distribution with a much better hardware support and ease of installation than the other distribution. A distribution for which hardly users should have to fiddle with xorg.cong and co. Or know which drivers to choose during the installation menu, etc. And making networking easier, and access to drives more visible, (see Xandros...), and having pointers, easy things/infos for installing Amule, DVD codecs, the things today's potential clients would care about,
The goal should be this clear.
I don't see any need for excentric things such as kat or for purchasing exotic companies such as Conectiva. If Mandriva is aware of the reasons of its past success (more stable and easier distro than RedHat for end users) and of the present challenge, and meet this target and clearly shows itself to be the easiest distro for Windows converts, it will do well.
I hope Mandriva's management is aware of this... |
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brunogr
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| I forgot to say that good marketing / management employees would realise the formidable potential of the club / forum and listen to it, take advantage of it, etc. |
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brunogr
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| Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:18 pm Post subject: Re: The figures bad, the measurements good? |
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| brunogr wrote: | 1- those which are busy with the core activity are essential. Those which are busy with peripheral activities are the "fat" part of the company and can be disposed of in times of problems.
In the case of Mandriva, the core activity is the making of a Linux distribution, not selling things.
Hence these engineers should never have been fired |
Quite right. Especially considering that all Mandriva software is GPL... |
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idiallo
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| Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:06 am Post subject: Mandriva tries to focus on enterprise and desktop |
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Mandriva is trying to move out into the enterprise space of the market. It's treacherous, and the competition is fierce. Novell-Suse is losing market share to Red Hat. It's flagship app Netware has ben declining over time, and while its Linux efforts are up, it's not offsetting the major decline. The future for Novell-Suse is a question mark.
Mandriva is trying to gain market share in the enterprise space, and the results so far are hopefull. The problem is that while the enterprise market likes a long development cycle ( 1 year or more), the home market likes a 6 month cycle. This is a real dilemma. Many smaller distros are on a shorter cycle, and so can take advantage of newer updates in kde, gnome, xorg, and various apps as they become available. Many home users like this short development cycle with its offer of the latest and greatest. Mandrivas reputation was traditionally the latest and greatest, but with a bit of instability. The home market thought that this was a good deal. Now, many smaller distros offer free downloads on a 6 month cycle, often with graphics card drivers and other third party apps included.
Mandriva is obviously at a crossroads. Will it pursue the enterprise market, that wants stability, a longer development cycle, and longer support, or will it address the needs of the home market for more up to date apps. I don't have a crystal ball, and can't say. I suspect there's a way to do both.
When a company makes an acquisition, its stock price usually goes down for a short time, reflecting the increased cost of integrating the new company. That's to be expected. I wouldn't worry too much about that. The question is, will Mandriva hold on to its home user base with a one year cycle, when so many other distros are offering 6 month updates to kernels, xorg kde,gnome, and popular apps? |
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agendelman
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| Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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The people who were fired (I don't like using euphemisms...) came from all areas of the company, not just engineers (Kadjo and Gael, for e.g., were not in engineering). I believe the rationale behind firing engineers was that the takeover of Conectiva basically doubled the amount of engineers we had without really doubling the amount of work that is needed, since the product lines were merged; most of the extra capacity has gone into doing more useful work, but there _were_ places where there were basically now two people who had the same job, and if a company needs to cut costs, one way to do it is to fire one of them. This isn't the official company line, of course, it's just what it looks like from where I'm sitting. I don't like to see anyone leave either - I worked with almost all the people who left and they all did good work - but I can see the reasoning behind it, it's not an entirely insane decision.
BTW, the name 'Mandriva' was chosen by an internal poll of the whole company from a shortlist the marketing department came up with, so they're not entirely to blame (if blame there is). I didn't vote for it, in case you're wondering. 
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awilliamson
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| Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:15 am Post subject: |
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| awilliamson wrote: |
BTW, the name 'Mandriva' was chosen by an internal poll of the whole company from a shortlist the marketing department came up with, so they're not entirely to blame (if blame there is). I didn't vote for it, in case you're wondering. |
What other options were on that list? |
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dexter11
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| Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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| awilliamson wrote: | | The people who were fired (I don't like using euphemisms...) came from all areas of the company, not just engineers (Kadjo and Gael, for e.g., were not in engineering). |
has Gael Duval been fired? |
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javiermv
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| Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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javier: Yes, Gael is one of the people who's gone.
dexter: let me dig it out of my inbox...
Mandriva
Mandreva
Manektiva
Manectiva
Ektiva
Mandreketiva
Mandraketiva
Mantiva
Mandiva
That was the initial list. Here's some selected excerpts from the discussion which followed
Vincent Danen: "Can I say that they're all horrible?"
Gael Duval: "it was actually decided *not* to go with a totally new name (we had one for one year now), but with a combination of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva, to keep the roots."
Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo: "I see, but at least can we suggest something close like Aktive Linux or Aktiva Linux?"
Pascal Terjan: "My preffered in the list was Mandiva but .com is already used so I voted Mantiva on the site...Maniva alsa sounds nice but has the same problem."
Helio Castro: "If one of this names really need to be picked, Mantiva is the one not so bad, but i'm with Vincent in this subject, as a complete new name sounds really the best choice."
Alan Shoemaker: "agreed. i voted for one of the ones on the list, but if it's still open i'll add some ideas: Ekardnam, EkardnamSoft - based on reverse spelling of mandrake - and now add a bit of reversed connectiva: Avitekardnam, AvitekardSoft" (I have _no idea_ what Alan was smoking...)
Vincent Danen: "Out of everything I've heard so far, I like these the best." (referring to Aktiva / Aktive)
Adam Williamson: "I hate to say it, but - me too." (replying to Vincent's original "they all stink" mail)
Vincent, Helio Castro and Rafael Garcia Suarez all pitch in in support of "Draktiva"
Arthur Mandalho: "I agree with Acme. Aktive is the best!"
Klara Mika suggests Conectdrake or Drakewader.
Stephane Lauriere suggests: kinetica, kinectiva, arkinea, arkevia, arkinova, ubika
Jacques Le Marois points out that www.aktive.com and www.aktiva.com are both taken
Francois Bancilhon puts an end to the madness: "As previously announced, we have chosen a new name, which we will eventually adopt, depending on the results of the Hearst case. The name we have chosen is MANDRIVA. Reasons for the choice are:
1. The name is simple and sounds good
2. It was the number one choice of the employees vote
3. it is a nice combination of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva, thus the name change can be motivated by a positive event (merger) rather than by a negative event (loss of a law suit)
4. it is far enough from Mandrakesoft, while retaining at bit of the sound
5. it has almost no references on google (5), same for close names (mandreva, etc.)
So there ya go, that's the inside story.
edit: forgot to mention, I didn't vote because the poll was on a site only accessible from the Paris or Brazil offices, but I liked Aktive, Aktiva or Draktiva the best (though as you can see, Aktive / Aktiva wasn't possible).
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awilliamson
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| Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:10 pm Post subject: |
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| awilliamson wrote: | | javier: Yes, Gael is one of the people who's gone. |
So... what will happen to Mandriva Linux Inside? Is Gael working on anything related to Mandriva or he has gone completely out of "Mandriva's world"?
I insist on this becaus Gael was one of Mandrake Soft founders, and it sounds impressive to me. |
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javiermv
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:32 am Post subject: |
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| awilliamson wrote: | | Yes, Gael is one of the people who's gone. |
Too bad... for me that means end of Mandrake story. See
http://www.indidea.org/gael/en/
Homepage of Gaël Duval, creator of Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux).
This page has not yet been updated with sad news however...
Interesting... will he join some other distribution (PCLinuxOS?), start a new one, or leave this field entirely? Probably it's worth to put some Google alerts to catch info about that...
And yes, after this Beta 3 of new Ubuntu I would say that there is another Linux release suitable even for long-time Mandrake/Mandriva user like me. Tried several different releases recently, just like many years ago looking for release I could use and enjoy. Found Kubuntu. |
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hbush
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| Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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Adam,
Without Gael, do you really think that Mandriva Linux Inside will survive ? |
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esfa
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:50 am Post subject: |
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I am personally saddened to hear that the founder of Mandrake/Mandriva has been let go.
I can't help but feel that there are few reasons to remain loyal to this distro.
Many of us suspected that the inmates have taken over the asylum. Now we have more evidence. 
The one good thing left about being a Club member is Adam's support in these forums and his active role in various mailing lists. However, without proper direction and resources from above, Mandriva will slowly migrate towards /dev/null. |
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RJ549
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 3:18 am Post subject: |
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I don't know what's happening with Inside yet. If it looks in danger of disappearance I'll see if I can take it over.
If I were really the only thing left worth being a Club member for I'd be a bit worried, but personally I think that's an overly pessimistic evaluation . As I've mentioned in other threads, there's some good stuff coming for the Club soon which I can't talk about because for some insane reason the marketing department consider it better to leave customers convinced for months that we're doing nothing (and thus getting angrier and angrier), then spring some massive 'surprise' on them that they had no idea was coming. I am somewhat mystified as to the supposed benefit of keeping things secret - I rather thought the _function_ of a marketing department was to loudly and aggressively _not_ keep things secret, but what do I know, I'm just a monkey. I have no idea where this theory comes from - shock and awe? Sigh.
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awilliamson
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| Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:48 am Post subject: |
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| awilliamson wrote: | | As I've mentioned in other threads, there's some good stuff coming for the Club soon which I can't talk about because for some insane reason the marketing department consider it better to leave customers convinced for months that we're doing nothing (and thus getting angrier and angrier), then spring some massive 'surprise' on them that they had no idea was coming. |
It could be that they've noticed the reaction to missed dates and have become afraid to give out any information rather than another round of making promises that aren't kept.
(Trying to be optimistic, but they don't make it easy.) |
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idget
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| Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:44 am Post subject: |
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| awilliamson wrote: |
If I were really the only thing left worth being a Club member for I'd be a bit worried, ....
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Your avatar looks very worried. 
Don't get me wrong, I started with Mandake 7.0 and haven't found any distro that I like better....at least so far.
Wouldn't it be a hoot if Ubuntu/Kubuntu hires Gael and then proceeds to eat Mandriva's lunch?
They've already got a good start. To repeat something I said earlier: "What goes around, comes around".
BTW: While typing this, I'm downloading Kubuntu Dapper Drake Flight CD 4. (Hmm, there's a "Drake" in this version name.) 8) |
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