Journal mec's Journal: My take on SCO 1
Follow the money.
(A good place to do that is www.sec.gov. Click on the company filings, look for "SCO", and read the 10-Q quarterly report).
In the quarter ended April 2003, The SCO Group sold $13 million of products and services and had $8 million of "SCO Source" revenue. They lost $2 million on the products and services. They made $6 million on the "SCO Source" program. Total net profit, $4 million.
The "SCO Source" licensees are Microsoft and Sun. In addition, Sun received options to buy shares of SCOX at $1.83 per share, which means they make money directly on the SCOX bubble.
In my opinion, the "SCO Source" program is a cover story, and the real deal is: Microsoft and Sun give money to SCO, and SCO agrees to piss on Linux, as loudly as possible.
So the lawsuit doesn't matter much. It's just the foundation for the PR.
The point of the PR is not to drive sales to Unixware and Open Server. Nothing can save these products now. (Revenue for these products is declining, quarter by quarter, and McBride says that it will be less in the next quarter than it was this quarter).
More subtly, the point of the PR is not to sell these ridiculous $699 "IP licenses"!
That's why it doesn't matter that the license is ridiculous. It doesn't matter that SCO claims ownership of enterprise code and concepts, but is dunning makers of embedded devices. It doesn't matter that SCO is attacking Fortune 1500 companies, handheld companies, the US Government, and IBM at the same time.
What does matter is how many times this discussion takes place in company conference rooms:
PHB: Do you think we should pay SCO $699 per server?
Techie: No, SCO is full of it, blah blah.
PHB: It sounds risky. We had better use something with less risk, like Solaris or Windows.
That's the point. SCO's actions are designed to produce as many of those conversations as possible in as many conference rooms as possible. It doesn't matter whether SCO actually sells any licenses. They are not attacking to drive Unixware product sales or SCO IP License sales. They are attacking to cause as much damage as possible without regard to their own health.
SCO has found a way to monetize anti-Linux FUD. Microsoft and Sun pay them money: $8 million last quarter and $5 million this year. Those are public facts. It's my opinion that the major reason for these purchases is to fund these attacks.
(And it also doesn't matter what happens to SCO's business reputation. SCO functions as a subsidiary of The Canopy Group. The Canopy Group did this before with Caldera International (sound familiar?), purchase of intellectual property, a quixotic lawsuit based on the purchased IP, and a successfull $150 million settlement against Microsoft. That is a whole story by itself).
I think you're right... (Score:2)
And I point you to this post [advogato.org] on Advogato [advogato.org].