The SCO Group’s revenue continued to fall in the fourth quarter and during fiscal 2005, as Unix sales slumped. Management, however, tried to put a positive spin on the results, released after Thursday’s market close, saying that cost-cutting measures have made SCO’s Unix business profitable again and adding that plenty of cash remains to continue a legal battle against IBM.
SCO’s Unix Slide Continues in Q4
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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EOM
Because it’s sponsor doesn’t want it to – yet.
Scox is not a real company. Scox is nothing but a Linux FUD machine, fully funded by microsoft. Even before the scox-scam, msft had decided to make legal threats against linux the bogeyman to scare off linux users and contributors. Scox is simply the implementation of that strategy.
Scox litterally owes everything they have to msft: the lawsuits, the exec salaries, everything. If not for msft arranged funding, scox would have been bankrupt, and out of business over a year ago.
Whenever scox runs low of cash, “investors” mysteriously appear. The investors come just in time, with just enough cash to get scox until the lawsuits trials start in mid-2007.
Scox’s actually value is zero, and the street knows it. Scox’s numerous lawsuits against other companies are obviously merritless. However the lawsuits against scox are very real, and scox will not be able to survive them. Mysteriously, scox’s market cap is up 10X since before the scam started – this in spite of the fact that scox loses more money every quarter. Scox is owned at least 75%, and probably more like 95%, by about ten institutions and individuals.
Of course scox is involved in litigation with both major linux companies: rhat and novl, and the biggest linux contributor: ibm. Scox’s other nuisance lawsuits were obvious PR stunts which, for all intents and purposes, have been thrown out.
“Scox is not a real company. Scox is nothing but a Linux FUD machine, fully funded by microsoft. Even before the scox-scam, msft had decided to make legal threats against linux the bogeyman to scare off linux users and contributors. Scox is simply the implementation of that strategy.”
What a bunch of horseshit. Look up the court case Caldera (aka SCO) vs. Microsoft. There is no love lost between these two companies.
…There is no love lost between these two companies.
Well I don’t think _Microsoft_ paying between $10-30 million for a Unix license from SCO and the introduction of BayStar Capital (and the $50 million they gave them) to SCO by _Microsoft_ implies there is no common interest either.
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What a bunch of horseshit. Look up the court case Caldera (aka SCO) vs. Microsoft. There is no love lost between these two companies.
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First, Caldera is not SCO. SCO is now Tarentella. Caldera changed it’s name to “The SCO Group” obvioulsy to confuse investors.
Second, want to explain to me why, at the begining of the scam, msft directly gave $17MM for “licenses” that msft doesn’t need? And why did msft arrange $50MM in funding for scox? Just to be nice? And why did msft try to hide that msft was the source of that funding? And why do msft shills like Enderle so strongly support scox?
Third, whatever happend in the past, if msft can use a litigation company to FUD linux, msft is all to happy to do so. Just because there was a lawsuit between two companies five years ago, doesn’t mean those companies can no longer do business.
Forth, consider that sunw and aapl (among so many others) have both sued msft. Does that msft will no longer work with those companies? No love lost?
“First, Caldera is not SCO. SCO is now Tarentella. Caldera changed it’s name to “The SCO Group” obvioulsy to confuse investors.”
I’m not talking about the Microsoft-Santa Cruz Operation 1997 antitrust dispute, I’m referring to the Caldera – Microsoft dispute over DR-DOS.
Before you flame someone, get your facts straight. And learn how to spell “fourth” – it’s not that hard.
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I’m not talking about the Microsoft-Santa Cruz Operation 1997 antitrust dispute, I’m referring to the Caldera – Microsoft dispute over DR-DOS.
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I know what you were posting about. But, you refered to Scox (caldera, the sco group, whatever) as “SCO.” So I corrected you. Again, “The SCO Group” is not “SCO” they are completely different companies. I will thank you, and other msft/scox shills, not to confuse “The SCO Group” with “SCO.”
Thank you, and happy holidays.
NOT!!
Maybe SCO will finally realize that sewing the Linux community without proper reasons wasn’t such a good idea.
Our UNIX business could be small but profitable, but our litigation turns a small profit into a large loss.
Conclusion:
Continue Litigating
But the good news is that we have plenty of gunpowder to attack that nuclear plane carrier and enough gas to continue circling around it…. We are clearly heading for success.
Let’s better make things ! (or was it let’s make things better ??)
Let’s better make things ! (or was it let’s make things better ??)
They have a new slogan:
Sense and simplicity. And yes, it was let’s make things better.
I’ve always thought that SCO has a very nice logo.
Hahaha, you can almost imagine upper management saying:
“Well, yes.. our business is sinking.. but we have a really nice logo!”
Die slowling, bitch !
Once this whole Sco <—> IBM debacle is over, I can’t wait to see Darl Mcbride be criminally prosecuted. What SCO is doing is illegal. If they even had any supposed “source code”, it would have surfaced long ago as Judge Kimball has told them repeatedly to hand it over to IBM.
It’s really sad that they didn’t quit while they had somewhat of a clean reputation for themselves. Now they are just the laughing stock of the IT community that IBM will devour sooner or later.
If IBM says, “Put out or swim”, SCO is slowly drowning.
You seem to have a weak understanding of the law. There is no basis, currently, for McBride to be prosecuted under. Are his actions ethical? Not likely. Are they legal? Yes, he has every right under the current judicial system to sue as long as the courts believe he has a case. Currently, they do.
Beyond that, are you even familiar with any of SCO’s products? Their Unix suites are still some of the best around, and the quality of their insulary projects is supurb.
I’m no SCO apologist, trust me, from a business standpoint I saw this vapour suit as a big problem. However, I think you need a better basis for your attacks, as well as understand the SCO is not some company just throwing around lawsuits. They are trying to protect their market.
Please, before you mod me down, actually read what I have said. I am on Linux’s side here, however, SCO has every right to sue. They just shouldn’t win.
I’m not one of those who start screaming “sue them” at every opportunity like so many seem to do. But it does seem to me that McBride has made some very public accusations of infringed code in the press.
If the code doesnt come out later in trial doesn’t that mean he made knowingly false statements? And duped investors who were paying for the trial? So they should have some recourse?
As for your latter statements about SCOs products I’m just going to have to go with my experience. I use Solaris, Windows, and Linux in production. SCO Unixware, and SCO OpenServer are *nasty* environments to use and support.
The hardware support is horrible, their systems are non-standard in suprising ways. (Yes I realise most of the major Unix vendors do funny things – but SCO is symlink hell as far as I’m concerned. eg even /etc/passwd is a symlink to the real file!)
Some SCO systems I’ve seen stand up for long periods of time, but much more often they seem to suffer under load with crashing. Of course that could just be my setup, and my poor administration – but I’ve heard similar stories from local people who I trust and recognise as being competant.
They are trying to protect their market.
My suggestion to them, far too late to do any good now, would be to stop trying so hard since they are killing the business and driving away customers by suing their own end users as well as IBM. Besides they have been losing money for 7 years now, they don’t have much market left.
The problem with them [theoretically] taking my advice is that the counterclaims won’t go away even if they drop their lawsuits.
They are trying to protect their market.
No this is where you are wrong. SCO is not SCO, it is in fact Caldera which was a Linux company (My first Linux distro was Caldera OpenLinux 2.2) that was a spin off from Novell. Caldera bought the SCO Unix business from Tarentella while Ransom Love was CEO. They announced that they were going to integrate Linux and Unix. Caldera at that time was one of the key sponsors of the United Linux consortium.
When Ransom Love abruptly left and Darryl McBride (with a history of litigation) was brought in as CEO the company changed its name to the SCO Group. They then started their campaign of litigation against IBM and others. This campaign serves two purposes:
1. It is a pump and dump scheme aimed at making a lot of money for certain people.
2. It is a FUD campaign against Linux financed by MS and Sun’s purchase of Unix “licenses” from SCOG and also by the MS backed venture capital financing which turned sour when the dirty details behind it became public.
The litigation has proved counter-productive to SCOG’s Unix market share, firstly the case against IBM and the loudmouthed public campaign of lies and FUD against Linux caused a lot of ill will amongst knowledgeable IT professionals who were now prejudiced against buying the SCO Unix product. Finally by sueing their former customers DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone they created further prejudice against buying SCO Unix, as what sane company is going to buy a product from a company that sues its own customers.
Edited 2005-12-24 03:20
http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/aquasco/
http://www.vivaolinux.com.br/wallpapers/comunidade/8892-1.jpg
http://www.people.iup.edu/gfoster/underground/wallpaper.htm
Just thought I’d add this one:
http://tijil.org/SCO/source/sco_hq_bldg.html
No, they don’t have every right to sue. Read up on the Lanham act. You can’t sue without a case, which means you can’t sue and use discovery as a fishing expedition to look for *any* wrong doing. That SCO has gotten away with what they have so far is pretty amazing, and it will be pretty interesting when the turn comes to IBM’s, Novell’s and Red Hat’s counter suits – if there is anything left of SCO by then.
Good point. Interestingly, SCO is allowed to sue without any case. Red Hat is not allowed to sue until the SCO/IBM case is settled, yet they have a legitimate case.
That’s all SCO is really doing now. They know that they’re dying, and they’re trying to take as much of their competitors’ time and money with them as they can.
I had a free version of SCO Unixware and I really enjoyed it. Was rock stable and professional looking. I don’t know much about the lawsuit story but I admire SCO because they continue developing UNIX while the other companies are discontinuing the development of their UNIX flavours and sadly substituting them by Linux.
And, they were real crap. The documentation was quite good though.
I’ll enjoy pulling your post apart:
Quote: “There is no basis, currently, for McBride to be prosecuted under.”
Bullshit. What about lying to shareholders? And I think you’ll find that launching a legal suit with no basis (but lying about it for 3 or more years) is going to catch up with Mr McBride. What about inside trading? mmm? Want me to throw a few more things at SCO and Darl McBride?
Quote: “Currently, they do.”
What are you smoking? They have no case, never had a case, never will have a case. If you believe in that, you must believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and the Tooth Fairy as well eh?
Quote: “Their Unix suites are still some of the best around, and the quality of their insulary projects is supurb. ”
I’ve never used a SCO (or Caldera) product, never will. Won’t recommend them either. If you say that you’re supporting Linux, why the f–k are you supporting a SCO product which has falsely claimed that Linux is a “Unix ripoff and violated our IP rights”? mmm? Please enlighten me.
Quote: “They are trying to protect their market.”
By lying to the courts and making false and misleading legal claims? That is not the way to protect your market. SCO should have made a better product, at a cheaper price. End of story.
Quote: “SCO has every right to sue.”
Yes, they do, BUT only if they have a valid case. So far, they’ve wasted the courts time. Cost IBM millions in legal costs. And lost a lot of customers. SCO never had a case, and very very soon, we’ll find that out. I’m really looking forward to the December 26th hearing.
How you got modded up for your shit I don’t know. Obviously there’s a few SCO and Microsoft shills out there.
Dave
You’re spot on. Furthermore, those that are using this as a pump and dump money making scheme have long since made their money. The ones that’ll lose out are the ones that aren’t practising insider trading, the ordinary mum and dad investors. They’ll lose out big. If SCO goes bust, these big guns will walk away with lots of money, so to them, it doesn’t make any difference if SCO goes bust, cos they’ll use the litigation model to make money. I’m really looking forward to a formal SEC investigation into this, and several people being charged and jailed.
Whether or not SCO goes bust depends upon Sun and Microsoft. And IBM is gonna dig deep and find out where all these monies and dirty deals are coming from. My hope is that IBM finds so much dirt on Sun and Microsoft that the US government finally has to do something about them and punish both of them severely. Make no mistake – I group both Sun and Microsoft in the same group – enemies of Linux and open source (at least GPL’d open source – both of them love BSD style open source cos they can copy it, rip it off and not give back to the community).
Dave