Like all Linux or Internet companies at IPO time, Linuxcare loses money. Almost all of the revenue comes from the technical support and education activities. Professional services and certification are not significant generators of revenue at this time. They've been losing money, and don't expect to change that until 2002 at best. Competition for Linux professionals is intense.
Fast growth is difficult to manage.
Linuxcare hired 120 people in 1999, including most of its management team, which has not worked together before. They have permission from Linus to use it now, but he could always change his mind. More applications for Linux need to be developed and accepted. Linuxcare plans to support this sort of application development. Fragmentation of Linux could hurt Linux in general, and force Linuxcare to support a wider set of distributions.