SCO Claims $15,300,000 From SCOsource 404
Hollins writes "Yesterday, SCO filed their latest 10-Q. In it, they claim over fifteen million dollars in revenue from their SCOsource initiative (mostly from Microsoft and Sun) with a decline in revenue from all other sources. A lot of interesting statements are in the 10-Q, including "The success of our SCOsource licensing initiative, at least initially, will depend to a great extent on the perceived strength of our intellectual property and contractual claims and our willingness to enforce our rights. Many, particularly those in the open source community, dispute the allegations of infringement that we have made"."
10 Q (Score:5, Funny)
Re:10 Q (Score:4, Funny)
Soko
Re:10 Q (Score:4, Funny)
He is clearly an idiot.
Re:10 Q (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, had to be done...
Re:10 Q (Score:5, Funny)
It is SO fashionable to insult Darl McBride. But the fact is, that man is out there every night giving all he can to make us laugh, and it's always fresh material! And he's positively charming when he tries to sue people!
Thank you, Captain Obvious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh. You just tried to charge for Linux.
of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:of course (Score:3, Interesting)
It looks that M$ is using their money not only directly in fiaSCO contracts. You can see what is happening with SCOX stock too here [weblogs.com]
Re:of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdotted! (Score:4, Interesting)
Does it mention in any more detail how this licence revenue has come in? Aside from MS and Sun, who else has paid up?
I'm particularly interested in the number of people who've signed up for the $699 "bargain rate" for Linux licences
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:5, Insightful)
No license is actually available.
It's all a big dog and pony show (with fake dogs and ponies) and even SCO staff are puzzled and frustrated, particularly the sales staff who actually have to tell people to take a hike.
Cute, huh?
KFG
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:5, Interesting)
A) The obvious fraud charge that everyone has already discussed.
B) Anyone who receives one of those invoices might try to challenge SCO's copyrights. Given that the presiding judge ruled ATT was "unlikely" to prevail on their copyright claims in the BSD case, SCO does not want to put their copyrights to the test in court.
C) Anyone receiving one of those invoices might ask for declaratory judgement, requiring SCO to shut up.
It's less a dog and pony show than a strip tease. And I really *don't* want to imagine Darl naked.
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:4, Funny)
I keep pointing this one out, and being told I'm an idiot in various ways, but the fact of the matter is that UNIX code has already been judicially reviewed and the result of that review suggests that SCO's magic bag of intellectual property is, and always was, empty.
That's why the only "trick" they've managed to pull out of it so far is a cheap and tawdry contractual disagreement.
Even that one is bogus and unimplemented in the vast majority of actual installs.
It's less a dog and pony show than a strip tease. And I really *don't* want to imagine Darl naked.
"Haah. Ah'm SCO. This is my brother Darl and this is my other brother Darl. We're the McIdiots. Would you lahk us to strip fer yew?"
"No? How about we eat a dead rat, or business plan, or OS, or somethin'?"
"Okey-dokey. Just give us yer money then."
KFG
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:4, Funny)
This is a violation of our Trademark.
Our McLawyers will be contacting you shortly.
McDonalds.
Over 1000000 Sued!
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:3, Interesting)
I was going to argue this, but then I realized what an excellent example it makes for "how public domain happens".
For instance, my first thought was, 32V isn't public domain, yet. It's still under copyright until a judge or the copyright holder declares it public domain, or until it's something like over 50 years old or the author dies.
But then I thought, Wait, I don't *know* that ATT never put 32V under public
Re:Slashdotted! (Score:4, Funny)
Clarification: It's like a strip tease in that they never show what they promise to.
So what they are saying... (Score:4, Interesting)
Secret. (Score:5, Funny)
stolen SCO email:
@@
Darl,
How do these numbers look? I spent 4 hours pulling them out of my ass.
-Chris
@@
Chris,
That total looks great! Redo it without all the details
then put it on the wires; I have a payment due on my
Mercedes this Thursday.
-Darl
@@
Re:Secret. (Score:3, Funny)
Darl,
Uhhh.. SGI is knocking at our door.
-Chris
@@
Chris,
Can you take care of it? I am getting a new toupe to match the color of my Mercedes. And I'm expecting my shipment of Enlargo to be in by Thursday too.
-Darl
@@
Re:Secret. (Score:5, Funny)
Hi! How are you! I send you this file in order to have your advice!
Re:Secret. (Score:5, Funny)
Sun money to swat the SCO mosquito:_____$299,996.50
Money Darl swiped from the coffee fund whilst no one was watching:______________$3.50
Total amount of cash extorted/raped:_$15,300,000.00
The look on SCO executive's faces when they learn their tactics have ultimately bankrupted them:
Priceless
Okay, one more time (Score:3, Funny)
Two companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Insightful)
They should definitely be worried. Sun has sat on it's ass for years riding it's reputation while stagnating. There is NOTHING interesting happening at Sun at this point. I don't wait with baited breath about a hardware announcement anymore or have hope that we'll see anything but 250MHz bumps in speed every 6 months or so if we're lucky. Sun is becoming irrelevent and they are their own worst enemy.
Re:Two companies (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Interesting)
They're taking a big risk of alienating the community that way. Personally I wouldn't play my cards that way given that a hefty hunk of the product offering (Mad hatter et al) coming up is open source based.
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Informative)
You didn't read the news right. Sun has repeated several times that they indemnify Solaris customers, not Linux customers. Linux customers are on their own.
Re:Sun showing it's true side... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two companies (Score:3, Informative)
High volume I/O
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Though I have no love for solaris, and I like budget options, I always defend sun hardware. Probably because I work on it on a daily basis (we use everything from IPC's to our quad proc ultra II at Netmar).
The hardware is rock solid. I mean, you have to beat them with hammers to break them. The PROMS die before anything else goes bad, and that's just cause of the battery. And when the prom dies? Just boot it and make it set it's own mac address in the OS. The fact that we still use IPC's (as monitoring servers, rstat graph displayers, etc) is a testiment to how long they last.
I just looked at the sun website. The machine you offer does indeed cost $40k, or close to it ($35k). However, make sure you see what's included in that. It's 4x Ultra SPARC III Cu 1.05 Ghz processors, EACH with 8MB of cache. On top of that, there's 32 256MB sticks of registered memory, 2 10k RPM 73GB discs, 2 Gigabit ethernet ports, and dual 1440 Watt power supplies. That's a beast of a machine.
Oh, and wait, what's this?
I configure a machine almost matching the specs. The difference here is the processors, which are 2.8 Ghz Xeons, but ONLY 2MB OF CACHE, and they're also only 32bit. Otherwise, the same. 8GB of ram, 2 10k rpm 73GB SCSI drives. Guess what? It cost $28,000.
Between $28,000 for 32 bit procs with 2MB of cache, and $35,000 for 64 bit procs with 8MB of cache, I might go ahead and bump it up.
I wish people would realize that sun is rock solid hardware and not that much more expensive.
~Will
Re:Two companies (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't actually disagree with you :) Alot of people don't need rock solid though, and don't need to pay for it. At the university I worked at, we didn't need rock solid, but we could afford it. I'm not saying we ever bought a DELL server, we just threatened to to get Sun to lower their rediculous prices :) Negotiating with them always reminded me of the south park where cartman is selling fetuses, "oh jesus larry you're breaking my balls here." Sun tries to club you over the head with their *rediculous* list prices.
Once after I negotiated a pretty good deal (104k for A fire V440 with 4 procs, 4 gigs of ram, 2.6 TB of storage, and a tape library), I told one of my coworkers how proud I was of myself for getting us almost 50% off the list, and he said the funniest thing I've ever heard, "You should have asked them to raise their prices so we could have gotten an even better discount."
So anyways, I love suns, was a solaris admin for 2.5 years, and I dont really diasgree with you. Just saying the average business might not need all that horespower. In my entire time I had *one* sparc 10 give out that was ancient, other then that nare a hardware problem in 2.5 years.
Re:Two companies (Score:3, Informative)
Well the University obviously hasn't looked very hard. Following the standard Sun method, there's the 'commercial' product, and an Open Source 'project' standing behind it. The Grid Engine Project [sunsource.net] does, of course, have downloadable and browsable source cod [sunsource.net]
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two companies (Score:3, Informative)
It is however interesting that they have stock options.
Re:Two companies (Score:4, Interesting)
Sun is helping desktop Linux a lot, specifically through Open Office. Sun is also attacking server Linux via its partnership with SCO. Sun is a Linux ally in cases where Linux competes with Sun's competitors, and a Linux foe in situations where Linux competes with Sun.
Re:Two companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Anti-AIX propaganda? They were sending out FUD emails to (among other people) a friend of mine saying "hey, we'll help you switch from AIX to Solaris, since we don't have any licensing problems"....
hoo boy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Allow me a guess.
Zero. Microsoft might keep you afloat for now, but you are doomed to failure.
Re:hoo boy... (Score:3, Funny)
Don't count on it. Darl needs revenue from SCOSource for each of the next two quarters if he wants to get the big bonus. He'll find someone to keep them afloat, might be MS, might be someone else with an axe to grind wrt Linux.
But after Darl gets that bonus? Yeah, zero.
10Q and all those warnings (Score:5, Insightful)
It wouldn't be too far fetched to see something like "In the event that a terrorist attack destroyed the databases containing proof of our IP claims, it is possible that we may not be able to meet our cash flow expectations"
Re:10Q and all those warnings (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why form 10s have so many caveats and warnings.
Yes, someone mod that sucker up! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not MOSTLY from Microsoft and Sun... (Score:5, Informative)
They refer to having Sun and MS, and say "The two licensing agreements signed by us to date resulted in revenue of $8,250,000 during the April 30, 2003 quarter and $7,280,000 during the July 31, 2003 quarter."
Meaning that SCOSource received no revenue whatsoever outside of those two. Hopefully it'll stay that way after they start sending invoices out.
Re: Not MOSTLY from Microsoft and Sun... (Score:4, Funny)
> Meaning that SCOSource received no revenue whatsoever outside of those two. Hopefully it'll stay that way after they start sending invoices out.
Invoice? I thought they had sent me some commemorative toilet paper!
Re:Not MOSTLY from Microsoft and Sun... (Score:3, Informative)
$8,250,000 + $7,280,000 = $15,530,00
Re:Not MOSTLY from Microsoft and Sun... (Score:5, Interesting)
Usually the glib responce is "RTFA" - in this case its RTF10K. To quote:
The other licensee mentioned was Microsoft. There's your proof that the mystery license went to Sun. Unless, of course, you believe SCO lied in their filing.
Re:Not MOSTLY from Microsoft and Sun... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait a minute. So the only two "SCO source" licensees are Microsoft and Sun, and there's proof in this "10Q" document (slashdotted already, but I believe you). Now Microsoft, IIRC, paid for some "IP" for their UNIX compatibility thing for NT. And we're told here that Sun bought a "'clean-up' license to cover items that were outside the scope of Sun's initial UNIX license".
Well that's all nice and good, except that neither of those licenses seem to be Linux-related, and I vividly recall Sontag bragging
10-Q covers up to July 31 (Score:3, Interesting)
The mystery "Fortune 500" company deal was announced on 2003-08-11. So that revenue will appear in the next 10-Q, for the quarter ended 2003-10-31, which will come out about 2003-12-17 or thereabouts.
The next questions are: will SCO identify the F500 licensee by name in their 10-Q? And will SCO break down their revenue enough so that we can figure out how much that license cost? My predictions are: (a) probably not; and (b) likely, but not guarante
Re:10-Q covers up to July 31 (Score:3, Interesting)
I see.
Yeah, it's fun to watch for, ahem, inaccuracies fed by SCO to the press, and is easy to believe they are less than honest. But it's wrong to just assume they are lying, and to say so, without evidence to support it. So I apologize. Thanks for pointing that out.
It's probably just that this company infuriates me. I can't remember being so angry at a company. It has become really hard to maintain objectivity when dealing with these bozos.
Re:The mystery licensee ... (Score:3, Informative)
Whoops. I'm wrong. Dammit, I wish we could delete posts from here.
SCO's 10-Q was for the quarter ending 7/31/03. The August license sale won't show up until the next 10-Q, due about December 15, for the quarter ending October 31.
I guess their fiscal year starts in February.
Re:License for Concurrent Run-Time Use of Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
I know Computer Associates has more than 2 systems that run Linux. Also I don't think that the text of the Linux License has been finallized. Plus TSG lies all the time anyways... So who knows what to believe?
The Intangible... (Score:5, Funny)
So..... SCO goodwill anyone? C'mon, who's hiding all the SCO goodwill? Bill, what's that you are hiding behind your back there? Why do you have lots of goodwill towards SCO, Bill?
Re:The Intangible... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The Intangible... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Balance Sheet Games (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't be suprised if SCO's stock price is overinflated due to short-selling. I'll be the first to admit that I have a rather limited knowledge of Wall Street finance, but there is a huge demand for the stock because everybody wants to sell short, wouldn't this make the price spike temporarily before it implodes?
Probably just wishfull thinking on my part. SCO gives the phrase "flogging a dead horse" a whole new world of meaning. It must be some kind of mutant zombie r
Truth in Reporting (Score:2, Interesting)
One of the lovely aspects of government-mandated reports is that they're required to acknowledge the negative side of things, forcing the company to state the obvious truth - rather than the company line - from time to time.
burned by their own lawsuit ? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's interesting.. it indicates at least some customers have given that lawsuit as the reason for not using their products.
Who says Open Source doesn't pay? (Score:3, Funny)
First Profitable Quarters Ever... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're profitable. First time ever. Its interesting that this licencing scheme brought them over the top. Does anyone have any numbers of how far they'd be in the red if it wasnt for this initiative? It doesnt seem to say in the article.
But it does say this:
So, if they werent profitable before, then a decline in product and service revenue should put them *far* into the red without the SCOSource thing.
Re:First Profitable Quarters Ever... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes. Start here:
The SCO Group Reports Third-Quarter Results [yahoo.com]
For the quarter ended July 31, the whole company reported $20.1 million in revenue and $3.1 million in net income. The SCO Source division generated $7.3 million revenue and $5.6 million in gross margin. That means the products&services portion of SCO generated $12.8 million revenue and ($2.5 million) in net loss.
I dug out numbers for the past
If nobody pays them, they go out of business (Score:3, Funny)
Everyone should NOT pay SCO. If nobody pays them, they go out of business. They have no money left.
And in the end... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And in the end... (Score:5, Funny)
Hang on a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone familiar with the 10-Q requirements explain whether this omission is permissable (because it was brought in Germany?) or has SCO done something else naughty?
Re:Hang on a minute... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hang on a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
From the 10Q: "Several entities in Germany have obtained temporary restraining orders in Germany precluding SCO GmbH, the Company's German subsidiary, in substance, from making statements in Germany that disparage Linux, or entities involved in the L
Talk about an understatement (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't this a bit like calling a nuclear war a "mild nuclear war"?
Sun is involved! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's time to boycott Sun. It's about time it learned you can't bite the hand that feeeds you.
Microsoft, of course, is no surprise. I'm slightly amazed they didn't give Sco more money.
The real question is (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps Win2k containcs SCO code? that would explain a lot.
about 8 million dollars of what?
thats well over 11000 liscenses at 699 a pop.
Re:Sun is involved! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sun got more than that... (Score:3, Interesting)
They got 210,000 stock warrants, now worth about $3 mil, but only carried on the SCO books as $500,000. Is it really income if its equity?
Re:Sun is involved! (Score:4, Interesting)
The license agreement with Sun provides for an additional $2,500,000 to be paid to us by November 2003. On July 31, 2003, Microsoft exercised an option to acquire expanded licensing rights. Upon delivery, we expect to recognize additional revenue related to this option.
Re:Sun is involved! (Score:3, Funny)
Because that would involve admitting to having a lot more linux installations than they could pass of as having to "study its weaknesses"... unless they were looking for a Beuwolf cluster of weaknesses
scosource.com (Score:4, Funny)
Stock Prices (Score:4, Insightful)
Flip a quarter, will the stock prices go up or go down?
Re:Stock Prices (Score:3, Interesting)
And in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Drivers license
Picture of Melinda and children
Weekly allowance in the amount of $15.3 million
Business Model? (Score:5, Interesting)
If they're earning revenue in any other meaningful way, it'd like to hear it.
Re:Business Model? (Score:5, Interesting)
What Does Darl Get Out Of It?
Darl gets a big fat payoff if he can deliver four straight profitable quarters. Most of it is in stock, which means he'll have to keep up the fiasco for extra quarter or two to cash out.
At that point, I think we can expect him to leave SCO -- if there is any SCO left to leave. Maybe the final legal showdown will be Darl v. Ralph, to be filed in late 2004 or early 2005. We all know how much Darl loves to sue his employers.
Anyway, this means the SCO v. IBM case is not likely to ever make it to court because there's *no* motivation for Darl to go that far.
In the meantime, he'll do whatever it takes to show profit on the next two or three 10-Q's. He'll slash personnel, support, anything, doesn't matter how it affects SCO's long term prospects, as long as he shows profits each quarter.
He'll try to get people to pay for SCO IP in Linux licenses NOW, not after the case is resolved in court, because he doesn't care what happens that far down the line.
He needs the money on the books and in the 10-Q next quarter and the following quarter. He's got two profitable quarters in a row now, though he probably wouldn't have made it this quarter without cutting personnel and associated costs. Two more to go, and he's golden.
If he hasn't done it already, we can expect some *extremely* creative accounting over the next two quarters. Personally, I think that asset listed as "Goodwill" is just the start of SCO's attempts at creative accounting. Or maybe more money from MS. MS, according to the latest 10-Q (available at SEC), has apparently purchased those "expanded licensing options" that were mentioned in the April 30 10-Q.
Darl's biggest fear is that something will shut down SCO and/or it's FUD machine within the next two-three quarters. If he sounds irrational and afraid, well, that's because he is. He can't pull any more profits out of Germany. Australia, Austria, and Poland are lining up to gag him in their countries. Red Hat's trying to do the same in the U.S. Of course, none of this matters much as long as no court decisions are reached within the next 3 quarters. Which means delay, delay, and delay will be SCO's legal strategy going forward.
Is it just me or.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is it just me or.... (Score:3, Funny)
It's the fact that
Leaked SCO court document (Score:3, Funny)
Microsofts use of UNIX code (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO: The Dot-Bomb Late Comer (Score:3, Insightful)
SCO will crash just as hard and fast. And in the current financial climate, the SEC will be knocking within minutes.
$15,300,000?! Impossible! (Score:4, Funny)
Time to fire up my favourite browser wget.
while [ true ] ; do wget -r -nd --delete-after http://www.sco.com/ ; done
"perceived strength" (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice that the licenses sold to Sun and Microsoft account for 100% of their SCOsource revenue, and neither appear to be Linux related, meaning that they've fooled noone into buying their $699 licenses, not even a single idiot.
This means that absolutely linux users, out of the millions out there, believes they have a valid argument enough to buy a license. Not 1%, not 0.00001%. Not a single one. This should say something to investors, but looking back on history, it probably won't.
Their quarterly report shows that their IP claims have no perceived strength at all, but rather it shows producers of operating systems threatened by Linux pumping money into FUD marketting business to make the campaign last as long as possible.
12 months of cash flow (Score:5, Interesting)
I sure hope someone else sues them soon.
Linux is HOT. SCO is NOT. (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft says Linux is hot: Get the Tools You Need to Compete with Linux [microsoft.com]
Microsoft is selling the CD: "Cost of CD is U.S. $3.50, plus shipping and handling."
Does this mean there should be a Linux "How to compete with Windows" CD, that you can download for free? I can see it now:
- Don't pay Microsoft to be aggressive toward you.
- Use Linux and don't worry about changes in the license agreement as part of a bug fix, after you have paid for the product.
- No forced upgrades:
Microsoft Bars Office 11 From Windows 9X [eweek.com]
- Using Linux and Open Office means never having a software funeral.
The fact that there is no "How to compete with SCO" CD available from Microsoft speaks loudly and clearly.Revenue != Cash received for products or services. (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember when SCO sent out zillions of invoices for $699 per copy of Linux? I believe that they don't actually expect to get paid for these invoices. They sent them out to increase their revenue, making their company look more successful, and when they won't get paid, they'll write it off on their federal taxes as "bad debts." It'll be years before this gets to court. In the meantime, showing revenue makes SCO LOOK successful, increasing their stock price.
Re:Revenue != Cash received for products or servic (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Revenue cannot be recognized unless it's earned
2. Revenue cannot be recognized unless you're likelier than not to get paid
Thus, unless SCO wants to get into really hot water really quickly, with the SEC, and with stockholders, they could not recognize the invoices as revenue. If a court says that they actually have rights on Linux, that's another story. But keep in mind that so far, they haven't asked a court to rul
Did you know? (Score:3, Funny)
Unless you've paid your $699 fee, that is. Please think of the kittens.
Some interesting statements ... (Score:4, Interesting)
During the three months ended July 31, 2003, Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") accounted for approximately 25 percent of total revenue and Sun Microsystems, Inc. ('Sun") accounted for approximately 12 percent of total revenue. During the nine months ended July 31, 2003, Microsoft accounted for approximately 16 percent of total revenue and Sun accounted for approximately 12 percent, of total revenue.
The second is, on the basis of the evidence I've seen, highly questionable:
As a result of our assertion of our intellectual property rights, we have been subjected to several denial of service attacks on our website which prevented web users from accessing our website and doing business with us for a period of time.
I guess it's that good ol' DoS attack that only happens outside office hours and on weekends in Utah.
Finally, there is this little gem, which I find intriguing:
During the quarter ended July 31, 2003, the Company issued a warrant to a consultant, as part of an agreement to assist the Company with its SCOsource licensing initiative. The warrant allows the consultant to acquire 25,000 shares of the Company's common stock at an exercise price of $8.50 per share for a term of two years from the date of the agreement.
Anyone care to venture a guess as to the identity of the unnamed "consultant"?
Rich
SCO delenda est.
How SCO Makes Its Money: The SCO Chain Letter (Score:5, Funny)
Follow the instructions in this chain letter EXACTLY, or HORRIBLE things will happen to you! Mr. L. Penguin threw away this letter, and was sentenced to five years in a Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison for UNIX(c) patent infringement. Meanwhile, B. Gates followed the instructions to the letter, and made a million dollar gain in the stock market the very next day!
Step 1: Send $660 to the first name on this list.
Step 2: Move the first name on the list to the third position on the list, and move the other names up one place.
Step 3: Do NOT put your own name on the list, or you too will be sent to a Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Prison.
Step 4: Pass this letter on to all your friends who use Linux.
Name #1
Darl McBride
The SCO Group
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
Name #2
Darrell McBride
The Santa Cruz Operation
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
Name #3
The Darlmeister
SCO SCO KaChoo
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
P.S. THIS IS 100% LEGAL UNLESS SOME STUPID JUDGE STOPS US, AND EVEN IF THEY DO WE'VE ALREADY DUMPED OUR STOCK!
english please (Score:3, Insightful)
$1,478,950 (Score:5, Informative)
Now, if this is not a pump-and-dump, could someone point a case of it out to me, because i obviously dont fuscking get it.
and since i'm a network guy, and not a financial analyst - how the heck does 1 person make 10% of the company's entire profit in stock sales in less than 6 months, and this not affect anything?
http://biz.yahoo.com/t/80/4661.html
I don't think it is... Someone please correct me? (Score:3, Interesting)
-----------
(1) Microsoft funded the initial lawsuit by licensing SCO's code to no known purpose.
(2) Almost nobody except for one trading firm is buying SCO stock. That one trading firm has in its board of director's Melinda Gates.
(3) That one firm is buying up stock as
Re:I don't think it is... Someone please correct m (Score:3, Interesting)
So I'm reading your post and it hits me...
Microsoft wants to absorb SCO.
Think about it. The stock options are the payoff for SCO's directors for going along with this thing. They test the PR waters by starting the whole IP action ahead of time.
Meanwhile, the "trading firm" picks up shares of SCO whenever a director wants to sell it.
Microsoft avoids an outright buyout which would, today, cause quite the PR backlash. But when they turn up as the owner of UNIX in a couple years, nobody's shocked...
So wha's new? (Score:3, Insightful)
The scene: Microsoft is at war with Linux specifically, OSS generally, IBM implicitly, and the entire forward-looking IT community fundamenally.
The problem: no-one believes a word that Microsoft says, anymore. The phrase "convicted monopolist" just rings too true. OK, thinks Mr CIO, we'll buy their products, because we have no choice, but they are a bunch of liars, and the sooner we can switch to something cheaper and safer, the better for all of us.
The solution: launch a jihad through a shadow company. What better than Caldera, a failing Linux broker, who just happened to buy some Unix IP and is run by lawyers...
The plan: Caldera renames itself to SCO to give itself some more street cred, then launches a one-two attack, first on IBM to give it that "David vs. Goliath" street cred. Hey, maybe someone thinks the world still hates IBM. (Guys, that is so 1980's!) Next, bounce off that attack into a full-frontal assault on Linux, using the tried and proven OJ defense. "Yes, gentlemen and ladies, if Linus is from Sweden, then all your source must belong to us!!"
The press: it's a slow summer, and all this news is welcome. Hey, so are the little presents from those generous guys at SCO. Darl, we liked the trip to Malibu, yes sir!
Microsoft: discrete distance. If SCO explode, they don't want to be contaminated.
Darl's game: the hike in share value was an unexpected bonus, but hey, it's welcome. The real payoff is the parachute that Microsoft have prepared, a buy-out of SCO once/if they can win enough control over Linux. Imagine the scoop: Redmond buys Linux, a full fist up the backside for all those open source hackers. Wet dreams for the Redmond Boys, who have perhaps strayed into one goatse.cs too many.
The OSS Community: "they can't be that stupid, surely?" Answer: no, they can't. So go figure their evil plan.
Remember: this is happening in the USA, the country which has little stickers on hifi equipment saying "warning: not for internal consumption", the land of absolute truths, where a 12 year-old can be a cybercriminal, where laws are treated not as approximations but as holy documents. If, when, SCO win legal control over Linux, however bizarre the means and flimsy the justification, it will be an absolute win for Microsoft.
My surprise is that the Microsoft sponsorship actually came to light so soon. I'd have thought they would find some way to hide it more discretely. As for Sun, all I can say is someone got them right proper. Silly eejits, did you really have to bend to Darl's salestalk? You've truly gone and made a huge mistake there, it is the death of your business.
why don't we do something they will understand (Score:3, Insightful)
1. it is a chance for some of us to make some money off of sco, for a change
2. if the trend is noticed then people will start dumping the stock, thus hurting sco directly and getting our faithful paid back sooner
3. we know for a fact that they are lying through their teeth, trying to bluff the stock price up, this is the best way I know to call that bluff and end their charade
Re:Wow SCOX stock has really shot up (Score:5, Informative)