SCO Announces Plan to Increase Revenue

Devistater writes "Yesterday, SCO announced a new MLM called "Me Inc." using the EdgeClick platform in an attempt to boost sales. One of the apps on the Edgeclick site does mass text messages to cell phones. From the article: 'Becoming a Me Inc. Sales Agent requires no technical skills or training and no investment other than a smart phone and a subscription to Me Inc. digital services. With these two simple things, a sales agent can earn up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per sale in commissions and subscription annuities generated by each account they sign up.' Watch out for an increase in spam, SCO style. In the same press release [PDF], SCO also trademarks 'Me.' Groklaw also has a few details on their site."

Additional info on the story

Are we going to start have to mention that SCO owns us when we talk about me, myself and I? I think that if anyone has a trademark claim on ME it would be microsoft lol. (you can see the TM symbol next to "Me" in the SCO press release).

Some direct quotes from the SCO press release.

        "Becoming a Me Inc. Sales Agent requires no technical skills or training and no investment other than a smart phone and a subscription to Me Inc. digital services. With these two simple things, a sales agent can earn up to hundreds or thousands of dollars per sale in commissions and subscription annuities generated by each account they sign up."

        "One of my main goals as the mayor of Provo City is to use technology to bless the lives of Provo residents, and Me Inc. is simply and effectively allowing me to do that," said Lewis K. Billings, mayor of Provo, Utah. "Me Inc. is an incredible technology, one which I plan to use continually throughout my term as it dramatically enhances my ability to personally reach constituents."

BTW, /. editors removed a link from my story. I'll put that and a few more here:
MLM= Multi-Level Marketing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-level_marketing [wikipedia.org]
Pyramid Scheme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme [wikipedia.org]

Thats basically what SCO is doing, a MLM/pyramid scheme.
Whats funny is that SCO's is a Utah based company, and Utah is where a huge percentage of MLM stuff originates.
I've even heard that one of the ppl who was on SCO's board was involved with starting a MLM a while back so this may be where Darl got the idea

Most MLM/Pyramid schemes are outright scams and illigal. Some few are not, if they actually sell a legitimate product. They are also the cause of a huge amount of spam.

BTW: In case there's any doubt, I'm NOT advocating this. I hate spam, scams and schemes. I just think its a stark example of how far SCO has fallen, and I want people to be aware of what shady things they are trying to do.

What the fuck?

A few years ago, someone described SCO as having gone "completely mad" and asked "what the fuck".

I'll skip a bit - and basically cut and paste the core of my response, which was to say they'd gone far past "completely utterly loony" and "what the fucking fuck fuck", and that the proper question was...

Is SCO completely, utterly, apeshit, goatshit and batshit, 649-megabytes-short-of-a-Debian-ISO, stark, slavering, buggo?!? Fuck! Are the fucking fuckers fucking well fucked? What the fuck? What the fucking fuck fuck? What the figgety fucking fuckity fuck fuck?

In addition to receiving the award for The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Slashdot Posting, I now hereby ask for the individual who described the Grand Canyon as a "ditch" to step aside and yield the Understatement of the Century award.

I rule. Me, unincorporated.

EdgeClick platform

It seems like they're also rolling out a new sort of platform:

'At the core of the EdgeClick platform is an innovative service-oriented architecture (SOA) server called an "edge processor" that connects many types of end-point devices -- including mobile phones, PCs and others -- to robust digital network services for communications, collaboration, control, information access and transactional processing. Integrated with this technology are facilities for automated service branding, monetization and business federation. These facilities make seamless the development, marketing, provisioning and billing of high-value, high-impact digital services.'

The blurb spun this as "mass text messages to cell phones." Are there any positive uses for this, like informing schoolchildren about snow days and such?

Hi, I need your help

My name is Dalr McBrid and I've from Nigera. My company has $20,000,000 overseas that we wnt to brang to Ameracas to invest. We will give 10% to anyone who wills help we transfer it.

uhhh...

What is this, a Penny Arcade strip?

Buzzword o' meter pegged!

Anyone else read some of the press release? Look at the kinds of buzz word/marketing speak they put in there:

"Innovative Technology Platform"
"a Transactional Portal to Support the Entire Digital Services 'Ecosystem'"
"an innovative service-oriented architecture"
"automated service branding"
"business federation"
"high-value, high-impact digital services"
"service grid network architecture"
"suite of rich mobility services"
"web-enabled desktop" (lots of non web enabled ones out there I guess)
"easy-to-use mobile polling service"
"dramatically enhances my ability to personally reach constituents."
"effective tool in increasing the communication and collaboration"
"The edge processor creates a secure environment for information access and control by off-loading information from lightweight mobile devices and performing the computational heavy lifting in a secure and stable environment. This added layer of processing power and security enables smart phones and other mobile devices to be the high-powered productivity tools that everyone wants."
"Distributed EdgeClick edge processors communicate automatically with each other, forming a service grid network for flexible, secure, robust, deployment and management of software, servers, and other infrastructure assets. "
"The EdgeClick edge processor will also be available soon for on-premise deployment by enterprise and third-party solution partners, thus enabling them to securely extend existing business application functionality to mobile devices such as smart phones and PDAs."
"SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers.
Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of thousands of resellers and developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers."

That last I threw in there for laughs.

My eyes are glazing over, I cant tell how many more there are in that single press release.

BTW, is it bad if I can understand most of this market speek?

Bonus for those who read this far, a market speak web economy phrase generator:
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html [dack.com]
Some examples:
productize frictionless deliverables
incubate proactive action-items
exploit best-of-breed convergence

Isn't this illegal?

I thought it was illegal to send mass messages to cell phones since it's owner pay.

For the same reason it's supposed to be illegal to spam a fax machine.

SCO needs some serious beatings if they're starting to get into MLMs which mass-message cell phones.