Yes, I was probably referring to 5 rather than 3 years for Red Hat (I say “probably” because my riposte was also off the cuff – I didn’t put much thought into the calculation, so I appreciate you doing that for me . Red Hat’s revenues will continue to increase as they hold steady on renewals and grow bookings – they’re increasingly the only game in town (Ubuntu is nice, and I like Mark, but Ubuntu has a long ways to go before it becomes enterprise-ready. They basically are making all the same mistakes Red Hat made 5-7 years ago. And I haven’t seen much competition yet for Red Hat from Sun).

Red Hat should do ~$300M ($360M if we count JBoss, unless the numbers I’m seeing on Yahoo finance already factor those in – I don’t think so) in its FY 2006 (which ends February 28, 2007). I’m betting they’ll do $500M in FY 2007. With acquisitions and normal growth, I see them getting to $1B in the 5-year timeframe. They’re on the top of their game now, are much easier to work with (from a sales and partnering perspective), and have one of the best brands in IT.

As for MySQL, again, I think we need to look forward, not backward. They’re doing things now with their network, licensing, etc. that should significantly boost margins and conversion rates, if JBoss and Red Hat are any indication. And they’re powering the next wave of IT spending as the world builds the Internet on their backs. They’re in an enviable position.

Anyway, this is an argument that only time will settle. The good news is that losing (for you) has fantastic implications for you (as you noted) and everyone else…so long as they’re peddling open source.