January 28, 2008 5:00 AM PST
Recession-proof Red Hat?
As Wall Street gets nervous about a looming recession (and only perks up when the government throws more ill-advised ways for people to spend more money on the table), and as more and more companies give cautious to negative outlooks for the future (e.g., Intel), it's worth remembering something that Frank Lara of Stockmasters writes:
Well here's what should be turning investor's heads and help them not worry about selling enough iPods, iPhones, and just overall iRecessionDontNeedCrap items: Red Hat also raised its fiscal 2008 revenue outlook to between $521 million to $523 million, up from $510 million to $520 million.
Get that? In the midst of the doom and gloom Red Hat is raising its revenue outlook, not lowering it. Microsoft is, too. You apparently either need monopoly power (Microsoft) or open-source power (Red Hat) to weather the recession.
I know which one I prefer.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
