please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . august 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message geeknet inc. type subsidiary of gamestop industry online media ; retail founded november 1993 1993 11 1 founder larry augustin & james vera va research headquarters fairfax county virginia key people kathryn mccarthy ceo services thinkgeek total assets 74.2 million usd unaudited 2008 12 31 2 ex 99.1 total equity 62.6 million usd unaudited 2008 12 31 2 ex 99.1 parent gamestop 2015 present website geek.net geeknet inc. is a fairfax county virginia based company that owns the online retailer thinkgeek . 3 formerly known as va research va linux systems va software and sourceforge inc. it was founded in 1993 . it was formerly headquartered in mountain view california . 4 contents 1 history 1.1 va research 1.2 initial public offering 1.3 va software 1.4 sourceforge 1.5 geeknet 2 earnings 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit this section needs expansion with history of purchased companies . you can help by adding to it . november 2009 va research edit va research was founded in november 1993 1 by stanford graduate student larry augustin and james vera . augustin was a stanford colleague of jerry yang and david filo the founders of yahoo . 5 va research built and sold personal computer systems with the linux operating system installed as an alternative to more expensive unix workstations available at the time . 6 at the time they started operations they were one of the first computer vendors to offer linux as a pre installed operating system . during its initial years of operation the business was profitable and grew quickly with over 100 million in sales and a 10 percent profit margin in 1998 . it was the largest vendor of pre installed linux computers having approximately 20 percent of the linux hardware market . 6 in october 1998 the company received investments of 5.4 million 8 million when adjusted for inflation from intel and sequoia capital . 7 va linux servers in march and april 1999 va research purchased enlightenment solutions marketing company electric lichen l.l.c. and va s top competitor linux hardware solutions . 6 that year va research also won a business plan competition for the right to operate the linux.com domain . 5 it was rumored that microsoft and other bidders compaq red hat and hp had offered more cash for the domain but lacked detailed plans for its use . citation needed in may 1999 va created a linux labs division hiring former linux.com domain holder and programmer fred van kempen and programmers jon maddog hall geoff mandrake harrison jeremy allison richard morrell who would later create smoothwall as a project at va linux and san nettwerk mehat . 5 in the summer of 1999 programmers tony fusion94 guntharp uriah welcome tim perdue and drew streib began designing and developing sourceforge . sourceforge was released to the public at comdex on 17 november 1999 . va began porting linux to the new ia 64 processor architecture in earnest . intel and sequoia along with silicon graphics and other investors added an additional 25 million 36 million adjusted for inflation investment in june 1999 . 7 by then va planned to change its name to va linux systems and conduct an initial public offering of its stock . 5 initial public offering edit lnux stock price 9 december 1999 through 9 december 2000 va linux systems took its stock public in an initial public offering ipo on 9 december 1999 under the stock symbol lnux . the ipo offered shares at 30 but the traders held back the opening trade until the bids hit 299 . the stock popped up to 320 later in the day and closed its first day of trading at 239.25 a 698 percent return on investment . however this high flying success was short lived and within a year the stock was selling at well below the initial offer price . as of 2005 update this was still the most successful ipo of all time . the stock price reached an intra day peak of 54 cents on 24 july 2002 . it then soared more than 1 000 percent to an intra day high of 6.38 on 11 september 2003 . as of 26 november 2006 the stock closed at 4.64 . 8 many authors of free software were invited to buy shares at the initial price offering as part of a friends and family deal . due to the immense difference between the ipo offering price and the opening price va linux did not actually raise much capital in the offering and the stock price sagged as investors realized that the company s revenue and profitability were not likely to justify the share price . on 3 february 2000 the company announced that it was acquiring andover.net which had recently conducted its own initial public offering . 9 this acquisition gave va linux popular online media properties such as slashdot andover news network freshmeat newsforge became a mirror of linux.com in 2007 mirrors geeknet.com since 2010 linux.com thinkgeek and a variety of online software development resources . with this acquisition came a stable of writers such as rob malda robin miller jack bryar rod amis jon katz and cowboyneal . shortly after all of andover.net s assets were transferred to a new division of va linux called the open source development network osdn . 10 11 the acquisition was controversial within the linux community . bryar in particular wrote multiple articles suggesting that most linux oriented businesses were poorly thought out . he cautioned that the excitement over linux was little more than another internet bubble . citation needed nonetheless this acquisition eventually allowed the company to shift its business model from linux based product sales to specialty media and software development support . va software edit va linux s original equipment and systems business model encountered stiff competition from other hardware vendors offering linux as a pre installed operating system such as dell . the company booked operating losses as a result . on 26 june 2001 va linux decided that they would leave the systems hardware business and focus on software development . 12 13 during the summer of 2001 all of the hardware focused employees were dismissed as a result of this shift in the company s business model . on 6 december 2001 the company formally changed its name to va software recognizing that the majority of their business was now software development and specialty news and information services . however the company s japanese subsidiary still uses the name va linux systems japan k.k. in january 2002 sumitomo corporation became the largest shareholder in va linux systems japan and the japanese subsidiary became independent of va software . osdn was renamed to open source technology group ostg in 2004 . 14 15 va software sold animation factory to jupitermedia corporation on 27 december 2005 16 and sourceforge enterprise edition to collabnet on 24 april 2007 . 17 sourceforge edit sourceforge inc. logo va software changed its name to sourceforge inc. and merged with ostg on 24 may 2007 ; 18 eliminating ostg as a separate entity . on 5 january 2009 scott kauffman was appointed president and ceo of sourceforge inc. geeknet edit sourceforge inc. became geeknet inc. 19 on 4 november 2009 by creating the latter company and merging sourceforge into it . 2 ex 3.1 geeknet president and ceo scott kauffman resigned on 4 august 2010 . he was replaced by executive chairman kenneth langone . 20 on 10 august jason baird the company s chief operations officer and michael rudolph the company s chief marketing officer resigned both effective 31 august 2010 . jay seirmarco the company s chief technology officer also resigned effective 30 september 2010 . effective 5 august 2010 geeknet changed their nasdaq stock symbol to gknt . 20 effective 31 jan 2011 geeknet appointed matthew c. blank former ceo and chairman of showtime networks as a member of its board of directors . 21 later in 2011 the company renamed its freshmeat website to freecode . 22 in september 2012 slashdot sourceforge and freecode were sold to dice holdings for 20 million leaving thinkgeek as its sole property . 23 on may 26 2015 it was announced that pop culture oriented retailer hot topic had made an offer to acquire geeknet for 17.50 per share valuing the company at 122 million . however on may 29 2015 it was revealed that an unspecified company had made a counter offer of 20 per share ; hot topic was given until june 1 2015 to exceed this new offer . 24 25 26 on june 2 2015 it was announced that video game retail chain gamestop had acquired geeknet for 140 million . the deal closed on july 17 2015 . 27 earnings edit on 21 february 2006 va software reported its first profitable quarter . 28 net income for the second fiscal quarter of 2006 stood at 10.5 million or 17 cents per share compared to a net loss of 702 000 or a penny a share in the previous year s second quarter . excluding one time gains from the sale of animation factory va s profit that quarter would have been 1.1 million or 2 cents per share . 28 va followed this performance with two more consecutive profitable quarters earning 1.1 million in the third quarter of 2006 29 and 700 000 in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2006 citation needed which ended on 31 july . va ended the fiscal year with 51.9 million of cash up from 36.6 million the previous year . citation needed the company remained profitable until the fourth quarter of 2007 . since then with the exception of the fourth quarter of 2009 the company returned only money losing quarters through may 2010 . 30 see also edit osdn references edit a b va research linux systems announces support for the linux beer hike . press release . mountain view california va research inc. 1998 11 12 . archived from the original on 2011 07 18 . retrieved 2013 03 12 . a b c sourceforge inc. 2009 11 04 . form 8 k current report sec accession no. 0001144204 09 056526 . edgar . u.s. securities and exchange commission . retrieved 2009 11 06 . contact archived november 16 2009 at the wayback machine . . geeknet . retrieved on december 4 2011 . 11216 waples mill rd. suite 100 fairfax va 22030 usa contact . geeknet . november 16 2009 . retrieved on december 4 2011 . 650 castro street suite 450 mountain view ca 94041 usa a b c d mardesich jodi july 5 1999 . va linux systems . fortune . retrieved 2009 11 06 . a b c malik om 3 may 1999 . dell plus sun equals va research . forbes.com . retrieved 2007 06 13 . a b shankland stephen 1999 08 09 . va linux programs for the future . cnet news . retrieved 2009 12 15 . sourceforge inc. lnux interactive price graph . yahoo finance . retrieved 2007 06 13 . business wire june 7 2000 . va linux systems completes acquisition of andover.net ; combined network creates the leading internet destination in the linux and open source market . thefreedictionary.com . retrieved 2016 09 17 . business wire august 15 2000 . compaq emc hp ibm intel and sun join open source development network osdn as technology partners . thefreedictionary.com . retrieved 2016 09 17 . about osdn . osdn.com . va linux systems . archived from the original on 2000 08 15 . andrew orlowski 31 october 2001 va drops linux name boots out kuro5hin the register va linux outlines new strategic