Tue Nov 16 10:29:53 2004 Microsoft and
SCO
Posted by Tony Lawrence
Search Keys: lawsuit
Referencing:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733,39166798,00.htm
The link above is a good overview of Microsoft's involvement in the SCO lawsuits. I think it covers all the appropriate ground, and probably lays to rest the idea that there was any real collusion here. Microsoft saw an opportunity to help SCO damage Linux, so they bought in. SCO surely realized that Microsoft would chew them up at the first opportunity, but they needed the money, and refusing it wouldn't change anything, so why not?
Of course that doesn't touch why SCO embarked on this foolishness at all.
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CommentsBlog1136 :
"And what's been the impact on SCO? Despite the investment, SCO's fuel gauge is sliding toward empty. The legal action pushed SCO's stock from less than US$3 to a peak of US$22.29 last November...The shares closed at US$3.45 on Friday, giving the company a market capitalisation of US$57 million."
This excerpt sums up the entire situation rather nicely. In the world of business, showing a profit is what matters, and SCO isn't doing that, something that I blame on Darl McBride's boneheadedness.
Rather than adapting to the new order in UNIX-like software -- as Novell has apparently managed to do -- McBride has managed to slide the company to the brink of bankruptcy. I really can't find any kind words to describe his actions over the last several years. My opinion of his bellicose blustering about UNIX intellectual property rights (which apparently may not be the property of SCO at all) is that he is merely demonstrating himself to be a dumbass, not a business leader.
As for the future of OpenServer, I'm very close to saying there isn't one anymore in my business. Even if SCO somehow escapes this mess with their stock worth something more than toilet paper, I will have a hard time reconciling their recent actions with the direction I want my business to go. I sure don't want to invest more time and energy promoting software that no one might want, coming from an outfit that hasn't got its own business priorities straight.
--BigDumbDinosaur
---November 18, 2004
I don't know, but it may explain a little bit when you look at the contracts the lawyers got for their services originally.
They agreed to work at 2/3 rate per hour for their services in exchange for either 20% of the settlement/award OR 20% of the worth of the coporation over $17million (at the time SCO was worth 211 million) if they decided to sell SCO.
So I am guessing that either they were expecting to win, or have the corporation be bought out from underneath them...
Oh. And they got the retainer on 3 different law firms, and the SCO's brother, Kevin Mcbride is one of their lawyers.
So I don't know if that means anything or not, but it's just some extra fun facts about SCO.
Since then, though, they capped legal expenses at 31 million dollars (gone thru 12million so far). Which is kinda ironic number since if they sold the company out at 200million dollars that would come at around 36million or so.
--Drag
---November 18, 2004
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