From: Sativa@gnutella.com   
      
   Will Mark Shuttleworth sell to Microsoft?   
   Canonical?s Ubuntu Linux is not just the most popular Linux   
    distribution in Microsoft Azure. It is the most popular Linux   
    distribution across all clouds, and is the most popular Linux   
    distribution in use today. This is some massive success and the   
    growth of Ubuntu and Canonical puts the company at the forefront   
    of being an interesting acquisition target by companies like   
    Microsoft.   
      
   Since Canonical is a privately owned company, they don?t have   
    shares that can be bought up on the stock market for any kind of   
    hostile take over. Plus, for this type of acquisition, Microsoft   
    wouldn?t want to acquire the company that way anyway. As was done   
    peacefully, and great for the community, Microsoft will need to   
    come to some purchase agreement with Mark Shuttleworth,   
    Canonical?s founder.   
      
   As a company, Canonical is small enough that Microsoft could   
    easily afford to acquire it. According to Wikipedia, Canonical?s   
    revenue in 2018 was approximately $110 million. I don?t know what   
    the actual acquisition price would be, but it?s likely it would   
    take the form of a combination of cash and Microsoft stock in the   
    realm of somewhere between $770 million and $3.3 billion.   
    Although, given the popularity of Ubuntu, the company is most   
    likely work many times this amount. In reality we could be   
    looking at something more like a $30 billion acquisition.   
      
   My estimates of an acquisition price of between $770 million and   
    $3.3 billion are based on the acquisitions of GitHub and   
    LinkedIn. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn at $26 billion which is   
    roughly 7.2x it?s annual revenue at the time. And, Microsoft   
    acquired GitHub at $7.5 billion which is roughly 30x it?s annual   
    revenue at the time. Without knowing more about the finances of   
    Canonical, its seems to reason the acquisition price will be   
    somewhere in the realm of these numbers.   
      
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