Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

SCO Stock Continues Downward Spiral 186

Posted by Zonk from the coming-in-for-a-nosedive dept.
tobiasly writes "TechNewsWorld reports that three and a half years after SCO saw its stock price increase tenfold to US$20.50 following the filing of its lawsuit against IBM, it closed Tuesday at US$2.28 per share, or two cents less than where it was before the lawsuit. This follows a sustained slide fed by poor earnings results and courthouse reversals which, according to OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen, shows that 'Linux and open source software are bigger than any one company. Linux has won in the courts and is winning in the marketplace.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

SCO Stock Continues Downward Spiral More

SCO Stock Continues Downward Spiral

Comments Filter:

  • so where's the SEC investigation? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by macadamia_harold ( 947445 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @01:38AM (#15850941) Homepage
    TechNewsWorld reports that three and a half years after SCO saw its stock price increase tenfold to US$20.50 following the filing of its lawsuit against IBM, it closed Tuesday at US$2.28 per share, or two cents less than where it was before the lawsuit.

    Where's the SEC investigation of the SCO executives? At this point, there's plenty of evidence that this entire IBM lawsuit was a pump-and-dump scheme. What's the deal?
    • I haven't been paying attention to this case for the past, well, year. Did McBride or any execs cash out before it hit the bottom again? It should all be in the public SEC filings.
      • Darl isn't listed as a major holder, so either he sold out long ago (over two years), he owns stock indirectly through third parties, or he doesn't own enough to be listed as a major holder.

      • SCO CEO McBride sold 7000 shares. (Score:5, Informative)

        by macadamia_harold ( 947445 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:55AM (#15851155) Homepage
        * Opinder Bawa has one filing for having sold 15,000 shares, and another for 8,000 shares. He would appear to have sold all the shares he possesses (but he still has a lot of options).

        * Robert Bench has three filings: 7000 shares, 5000 shares, and 4100 shares.

        * Jeff Hunsaker sold 5000 shares at the beginning of June.

        * Darl McBride sold 7000 shares just after the suit was filed.

        That's millions of dollars [lwn.net] in stock sales [boosman.com]. Given that the stock price skyrocketed when they announced the lawsuit, and the executive stock dumping began shortly thereafter, what do you make of this situation?

        • Clearly (Score:5, Funny)

          by Chuck Chunder ( 21021 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @05:29AM (#15851476) Journal
          and the executive stock dumping began shortly thereafter, what do you make of this situation?
          SCO executives are such nice people that they decided to share the wealth that would undoubtably follow from their brilliant lawsuit idea with lucky investors?
        • That's millions of dollars in stock sales. Given that the stock price skyrocketed when they announced the lawsuit, and the executive stock dumping began shortly thereafter, what do you make of this situation?

          me, nothing. I already wanted to hang McBride by the balls anyway :)
          Seriously, people placed their money betting on SCO success in harming free software? well too bad for them. They actually helped SCO, so If they lose money I gloat in 32-bit color.

        • That's nothing - look at GTW to see real scam (Score:4, Informative)

          by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @10:18AM (#15852066)
          If you want to see real insider selling in a total tech scam look at GTW. On Friday GTW tanked 12% on > 2X normal volume to hit it's all time low.

          CEO, and long time scam artist, Lap Shun Hui has been dumping his free shares by the millions, and not properly reporting his sales. Apparently the guy is above the law.

          There has been very little insider selling involved in the scox-scam.
        • As far as I know so long as they report everything properly there's nothing illegal about an executive selling stock when their stock price goes up.

    • Re:so where's the SEC investigation? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by asuffield ( 111848 ) <asuffield@suffields.me.uk> on Saturday August 05, 2006 @04:31AM (#15851367)
      The SEC operates extremely slowly. It could be years before they get around to doing anything.

      Also, they're quite busy and tend to ignore companies that are either small or dying, on the basis that a dying company is a problem which will resolve itself if ignored, and they have more important things to do.

      • Re:so where's the SEC investigation? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @05:28AM (#15851471)

        What a poor way for the SEC to handle such situations. The specific problem, if any, is with the management, not the relevant company -- the problem won't correct itself when management join another company after its death, and they may simply repeat the strategy, perhaps more ambitiously, since it paid off the last time... this could just bring down further other companies which were in dire straights before.

        The management does their investors an extreme disservice, with their misguided efforts; surely they could come up with a better way of building a profitable business than relying off-chance that they might be able to kill Linux.

        Surely a company should not invest its future in the outcome of a single lawsuit, if the evidence in the clear evidence available in their favor is lacking, and the theory of how they are likely to successfully argue their case, and whether the likely recovery of damages will outweigh the risk, are doubtful.

        If the management cashed in their millions, perhaps the rest of the time actually pursuing the lawsuit is a thin veil, a farce, specifically and secretly designed to protect the perception of management's legitimacy to regulatory agencies, etc.

        The lawsuit and arguments leading up to it may have been a staged thing, but they couldn't back down without admitting either an act of incompetence, OR an act of manipulating the market for SCO stock.

        Until such time as the SCO management actually produce a credible case, and good solid evidence to back it up, it would seem they perpetuate a farce.

    • At this point, there's plenty of evidence that this entire IBM lawsuit was a pump-and-dump scheme.
      I will bite, where is that evidence then? All I see is people claiming it to be pump and dump.
      Selling stock when it is sudden worth ten times as much (who wouldn't?) isn't evidence of pump and dump. Given the context it can of course be suspicious.
      If you accuse without any proof, you will just be doing what SCO have done for so long.
      • Selling stock when it is sudden worth ten times as much (who wouldn't?) isn't evidence of pump and dump

        Not in and of itself, but when insiders all of a sudden sell a boatload of shares when they'd sold nothing the over the previous year things start looking rather iffy, particularly when the timing of events that led to the stock price increase were directly controllable by management and just happened to coincide with planned sales.

      • Selling stock when it is sudden worth ten times as much (who wouldn't?) isn't evidence of pump and dump.

        Granted, sudden selling is only dumping if the reason the stock went up was because of "pumping" - personal actions by the seller to deceive buyers, hence raising the price without fundamentally increasing the value of the company. Which is exactly what happened here, don't you agree? Are you saying the burden is on us to prove SCO doesn't have a rock-solid legal case against IBM hidden away somewh

    • I have no idea about this kind of thing. However, it could be argued that should SCO win the lawsuit, then their strategy will have been justified. If you accept that premise, then the SEC is obliged to wait until the case completes. The SEC does not have the right to take actions based on their expected outcome of a lawsuit. To do so would effectively be a summary judgement overriding the courts.

      Additionally, even if the lawsuit should fail, it was public knowledge. The SEC might take the position that a

    • ...were taken off the Microsoft case when the Government changed hands; I wouldn't be surprised if they just left things the way that they are. Non-action rather than agressive support of Microsoft's allies would be entirely consistent.

      Also, only geeks really care about this case, and by and large, they'll be satisfied with a court victory against SCO. Why commit more government funds?
    • The government isn't going to go after SCO while there is still active litigation going on. That's why SCO is keeping this going on now, despite the fact that they and everyone else knows that they lost the fight before it even began. The SEC will be hands off until the whole steaming pile of shit is out of the courts.

      That's not all there will be, of course. Darl and Co. will probably have shareholder lawsuits coming out the ying yang as well, although I've said it before and I'll say it again, every

  • Not to pick on poor ole SCO (just kidding, let's pick on em) but it's worse than that...back on March 14, 2002, they did a reverse stock split, 1 for 4, because the stock was doing so poorly. So, in fact a share would only be 57 cents today if it were not for that reverse split.

    A close of $2.28 means the stock has lost about 98% of it's value over the last 7 years.

  • Still have a long way to go (Score:3, Informative)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Saturday August 05, 2006 @01:40AM (#15850948) Journal
    I think they were at 60 cents before this all started.
    • I believe you are correct. Lowest close was at $0.60 on June 26, 2002.
      • However, I believe the $2.30 figure comes from the closing price on the day the lawsuit was officially filed. And it began it's stratospheric climb about two months later.

      • Re:Still have a long way to go (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The price you are quoting was before the its case against IBM. SCO sued IBM for infringements in March 6, 2003 and its share price peaked to $22.29 in October 2003. The share price started to drop gradually in 2004 and dropped to $4 in mid 2004. The share price was more or less the same in till mid June 2006. It has started to decline afterwards to the current level.

        If you see the balance sheet of the SCO, their revenue peaked in 2003, the year it sued IBM and declined afterwards. Also its cash flow stateme
    • Actually scox hit an intraday low of $0.56 on the day darl mcbride took over. Back then scox had about 10MM shares, today scox has about 20MM shares.

      Even with scox at three year lows, the market-cap is up from about $6MM to over $40MM.
    • Yes, they were, but WAY before it started. The lawsuit was filed March 6, 2003. If you don't believe me, go check your favorite source -- wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. The 60 cents per share was back in 2002. When the lawsuit was filed, they were somewhere between $1.85 (Feb 28, 2003) and $3.10 (March 7, 2003 closing price). I got that information from Google finance. They don't have daily listings for prices, but I figure a range is good.
  • ...SCO executives continue to dump stock.

  • bowl circler (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hedley ( 8715 ) <hedley@pacbell.net> on Saturday August 05, 2006 @01:42AM (#15850954) Homepage Journal
    Looks ready to auger in. Nice profit for the shorts on this one. When would you cover this one? There may be residual value at some point (office space, chairs etc). 20.5->0.25 or so would be my guess of maximal profit.

    Bring it on. I think they should rename themselves Icarus Operation

    H.
    • Looks like a great investment opportunity. The US is a capilalist-democracy, where dollars vote. Cast your vote by shorting their stock. Make money and help rid the world of SCO in one shot...brilliant!

    • Re:bowl circler (Score:3, Informative)

      by rfunches ( 800928 )

      When would you cover this one? There may be residual value at some point (office space, chairs etc). 20.5->0.25 or so would be my guess of maximal profit.

      Book value on SCOX (assets minus liabilities, a measure of how over/undervalued a stock is) is 67 cents per share (adjusted for split) for the quarter ending 4/30/06, or a little over $14 million. It probably won't fall below .67/share.

      What I find funny is that according to WSJ, there is one analyst still covering the stock with a buy rating. Howeve

  • Net Worth (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mlarios ( 212290 )
    At this point, how much is the company even worth?
    • According to Yahoo, SCOX' market cap is 46.86 Mio.

      I'm surprised a company that has no chance to sell anything ever again (after all who would buy anything from a company that is known to sue its customers) is still worth that much. In fact I'm surprised that SCO has any customers left at all.
      And I sincerly hope that all the stock gamblers who bet on this frivilous lawsuit lost a shitload of money.

      • Re:Net Worth (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pete6677 ( 681676 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:43AM (#15851115)
        I'd say their only customers are those with existing SCO systems that have not been upgraded yet. It can be easier to just buy another SCO license than to migrate the entire thing. I'm sure nobody is actually doing all-new SCO installations anymore. Anyone with a current SCO system should definitely have a migration plan, because they will be stuck with an unsupported OS when SCO finally liquidates.

        • Re:Net Worth (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Forge ( 2456 ) <kevinforge AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday August 05, 2006 @05:52AM (#15851517) Homepage Journal
          It's worse than that.

          The major client my company has which still runs SCO uses it on a server that must be certified by Auditors at enormous cost (It's a bank). The setup they have now has been in place for around 8 years and at the time they got it it cost 1/10 it's closest competitor.

          They have bought replacement software + hardware anyway and are now doing internal validation (before sheling out a few million to the Auditors).

    • Re:Net Worth (Score:3, Informative)

      by benna ( 614220 )
      The market cap (total market value of all the stock) is $46.82 million, but the enterprise value, which represents the company's price to an acquirer, is $28.20 million, as a result of the substantial (relatively speaking) amount of cash on the balance sheet.
      • Well, at least they've carried no "goodwill" on the balance sheet since this whole thing started...

  • Not Fair (Score:3, Funny)

    by tux_fairy ( 907230 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:03AM (#15850996)
    Fuck You. I'm Darl Mc Bride. You can't do this to me. You suck! I don't like you. I'm gonna tell my mommy...

  • Yay! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by B3ryllium ( 571199 )
    Yay! Let's make biscuits!

    (But seriously, as soon as RoyalBank/BayStar Capital pulled out, I think their funding prospects tanked - now they're just a silly waste of money to anyone who does the slightest bit of research before buying. And anyone who doesn't research an investment is risking a complete fleecing anyways, regardless of what company it is :))
  • I just hope they don't go completely down the tubes before IBM's lawyers eat them alive.

  • Venture investors (Score:3, Insightful)

    by darkonc ( 47285 ) <stephen_samuel@b ... m ['n.c' in gap]> on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:25AM (#15851060) Homepage Journal
    The people who were probably (hopefully) the most likely investors in SCOX were likely to have been the kind of people who invest in venture funds -- and don't mind a 10-1 long shot as long as the likely profits are at least 15-1. SCO was one of those.... Not too likely to win, but if they did, they might win big.

    Now their ods are waaaay to long for anybody's stomach, and probably the only thing keeping the stock out of the sub $1 market is the many short sellers who still have to cover their positions from time to time. -- I mean, who else in their right mind is going to buy SCO stock these days, other than an insider on orders from 'higher up'?

    • I mean, who else in their right mind is going to buy SCO stock these days, other than an insider on orders from 'higher up'?
      Novell or IBM or Redhat or Oracle or Sun. Although it seems now that they have succeeded in making the company cheaper for anyone to acquire. Good job!
  • Perhaps IBM should just buy them out at this point. They might even save on legal fees. SCO's enterprise value of $28.2 million pales in comparison to the $12.5 billion that IBM has in cash alone.

    • Re:IBM could just buy them out (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MoonFog ( 586818 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:49AM (#15851140)
      And reward the owners and leaders that got them into this mess? IBM should make sure they cannot get off their feet again, not back them up with money.
    • Perhaps IBM doesn't want to reward SCO for its behavior?

    • Re:IBM could just buy them out (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geoff lane ( 93738 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:55AM (#15851156)
      No, at this point IBM is being accused of many things by TSG and clearly wants either the accusations to be thrown out by the court or a trial to clear their name.

      Sometimes reputation has to be publically defended.

      Of course, there is the alternative theory, IBM lawyers like to play with their lunch before eating it :-)

    • Re:IBM could just buy them out (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @02:59AM (#15851167)
      IBM cant buy any SCO stock. If they do, it looks like IBM is "giving in" (i.e. buying them out instead of fighting).

      Plus, thats assuming that they could convince those who hold the levers at SCO to sell up (if the rumors are true and Microsoft etc are the ones who are really behind SCO and the lawsuit, they are going to want to keep fighting to do as much damage to linux as they can)
      • There shareholders would vote on it, and management wouldn't be able to convince anyone to vote no to any premium at all.

        If IBM did buy SCO, they could have the pleasure of firing everyone there.
      • Scox is not just suing, scox is being sued. Buy IBM, RedHat, and Novell, and maybe others. Others may join in later. Class action lawsuits are not out of the question.

        These lawsuits are no problem for scox, because scox plans on going bankrupt. But, if IBM bought scox, IBM would inheret all the lawsuits.

        Why do you think msft decided to sue by proxie?
    • The entire scam was funded, and possibly orchestred, by msft. It was part of msft's ongoing Linux FUD campaign. And it is was more than a lawsuit and stock scam.

      Lanham act violation - Scox knowing made verifiably untrue statements to the mass media. For example, scox has many times claimed to own the Unix operating system.

      RICO - Scox has claimed that anybody using Linux has to pay scox, or scox will sue them. This is extortion, racketeering, and barratry. Scox even mailed out 1500 threatening letters.

      Aside

  • Good To Know... (Score:2, Funny)

    by nemmi ( 33230 )
    Well well, it's good to know that their stock is finally neck-in-neck for value as my SCO admin certifications have been since I obtained them.

  • Open Source bigger than Microsoft? Or just SCO? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @03:37AM (#15851272) Journal
    "It shows that Linux and open source software are bigger than any one company. Linux has won in the courts and is winning in the marketplace. SCO . . . is dead."

    I think the victory is bigger than just the downfall of SCO. This shows that any number of Closed Source companies, working in concert / collusion / tandem... have lost to one single man - Richard Stallman, and his GPL. It is the GPL which has tightened the noose around SCO, completely puncturing the SCO case, since they themselves were offering the 'infringing code' under the GPL. Linux and Linus Torvalds are merely incidental, given the magnitude of the victory we are seeing now... in fact, Linus was hardly involved in the case at all.

    This is not just IBM vs SCO. Let's remember even IBM is not entirely behind Open Source, they have patents and interests in the Closed Source arena as well. In the ordinary world, if IBM wins vs SCO, they would control the entire Linux market, but because of the GPL, the entire Open Source community wins! In fact, this squarely places the spotlight on IBM now, specially since Lenovo is pre-loading Linux. Will IBM abandon their entire Closed Source strategy, and become the Google of the Services segment, in a truly Open Source way? Time will tell...

    Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Sun, Oracle etc. are losing. Try hard they may, but they have failed to negatively affect the marketshare and mindshare of Open Source products and the philosophy behind it. The day is not far off when Apple and MS are quoted below $1. On that day, the victory will be complete.

    • Re:Open Source bigger than Microsoft? Or just SCO? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zootm ( 850416 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @06:43AM (#15851579)

      On an idealistic "free software" note: This is a battle for freedom, not against oppression. The objective is not to kill MS or Apple (that would benefit no-one), it's to get them to accept Free Software, and embrace and produce it themselves. When Free Software surpasses them and if they don't change, they will die, that's just the way it goes. But the idea behind Free Software is not to "kill" anyone, it's just to be better. A genuine victory would be for Free Software to just become "how it's done", and for market leaders to all embrace these techniques.

      Victory is Free Software as the norm, not the killing of other companies. That's a hollow goal.

      • " This is a battle for freedom, not against oppression.....Victory is Free Software as the norm, not the killing of other companies . That's a hollow goal."

        Hmmm.. very nice point, and very-well articulated as well. Thanks for re-orienting my perspectives a bit.

        However, in the interim period before the goal of Free Software norm is achieved, don't you think the battle against oppression is a much more potent and tangible motivating force? Sayings like "The kite rises higher AGAINST the wind" and someth

        • However, in the interim period before the goal of Free Software norm is achieved, don't you think the battle against oppression is a much more potent and tangible motivating force?

          I just think it shifts the focus away from the merits of Free Software, and towards the shortfallings of other people. It also characterises Free Software as a fringe element, and a bitter one at that. I just don't think it's a useful goal.

          • It also characterises Free Software as a fringe element, and a bitter one at that.

            I think it is important to understand the enormous Money and Muscle power that Closed source giants enjoy. Mere Free Software is useless if the hardware will not tolerate freedom - TiVO devices, and branded PCs from Dell, printers from HP, video cards from NVidia etc. being examples. Or if no one develops on top of Free Software (the Sun Java trap). Unless a few Big Name firms (and their dubious philosophies and business pra

          • I just think it shifts the focus away from the merits of Free Software, and towards

            Towards the MSs, Oracles, etc. Part of what got me interested in linux & FreeBSD was the sneering condescencion of MSs sock-puppets like ZD & CNET. They seemed to suggest that their readership was simply too stupid to use any form of unix. Eventually, I stumbled across a copy of Mandrake 8.2 (at Wal-Mart!) which showed me that I had been lied to. And that's why I no longer have bookmarks for ZD or CNET.

            I like

    • While I'd not want to take *anything* away from the contributions of RMS, I don't think he deserves sainthood.

      Stallman would not have, nor could have, fought this fight alone.

      He is the person responsible for the idea. And it's a good idea.
      • While I'd not want to take *anything* away from the contributions of RMS, I don't think he deserves sainthood.

        So many entities on either side of the Free / Closed philosophy... and that includes Microsoft and Linus Torvalds, have changed their stance / approach / press-releases / licensing models etc. Over the past 15 years and more, Stallman has been expounding his thoughts with consistency and prescience.

        Considering he is a mere individual, this indeed seems REMARKABLE and certainly worthy of sainthood.

    • This shows that any number of Closed Source companies, working in concert / collusion / tandem... have lost to one single man - Richard Stallman, and his GPL.

      Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Ben Franklin was solely responsible for the US victories in WWII.

      Really, if we have to credit a single person for saving the universe, my nomination would go to PJ over on Groklaw. And I'm sure she'd be the first to say that she couldn't have done it alone.

      All credit to Stallman for the GPL, for the foresight he showed, an

    • Ten years ago I predicted the complete failure of Microsoft within three years thanks to Linux. Microsoft, thanks to Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, ME (yes, I know), NT, etc., is not only still alive, but kicking some serious ass money wise.

      To give you an idea of what you're up against with MSFT, you're looking at a company whose founder - Bill Gates - is worth so much money, he cannot spend all of the interest he makes from it in one day - in fact, I would have to guess that he could sustain the company for

    • This shows that any number of Closed Source companies, working in concert / collusion / tandem... have lost to one single man - Richard Stallman, and his GPL. Plus IBM's millions of dollars, lawyer expertise, and tenacity. (Just imagine if SCO sued Linus Torvaalds instead of IBM - it might be a different issue).

      Seriously you believe this? Really I'm not trolling, I just don't understand why a victory in a lawsuit against IBM (and incidentally, GNU/Linux) signals the end of proprietary software. Just beca

    • Try hard they may, but they have failed to negatively affect the marketshare and mindshare of Open Source products and the philosophy behind it. The day is not far off when Apple and MS are quoted below $1. On that day, the victory will be complete.

      Dude. You sound like some weird open-source John Galt. "He stepped to the window and pointed to the skyscrapers of the city. He said that we had to extinguish the lights of the world, and when we would see the lights of New York go out, we would know that our job

    • Open source software is great. It allows people to contribute to its development. It allows unlimited, albeit uncertain, resources in getting a product made, ported, etc.

      Proprietary software is great. It allows companies to hire groups of dedicated engineers to build a product and then fund further development and improvement. It helps meet consumers, and not just developers, needs. It is generally faster and more focused than open source. It gives people control over their creations. Most of all, it provid

  • Time is running out for SCO (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @03:42AM (#15851284) Homepage

    Time is running out for SCO. Check the scheduling order [groklaw.net]. We're past the stalling of pretrial discovery. We're past wondering if SCO has some surprise evidence. Discovery is over. Now things speed up. Expert reports are coming in now and end on September 22. On September 25, summary judgement motions start, and undoubtedly IBM will make some. Things can only get worse for SCO in the summary judgement phase, where some or all of SCO's case may be thrown out and IBM might win on some of their counterclaims. This whole thing could end in September.

    If not, trial starts in February 2007.

  • Can stock prices go negative? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ettlz ( 639203 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @04:44AM (#15851390) Journal
    And if not, can they make an exception for SCO?

    • Re:Can stock prices go negative? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ZorbaTHut ( 126196 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @05:12AM (#15851435) Homepage
      In theory, the realistic minimum price for a stock is the point at which the stock is worth precisely the company's assets. A company with a net value of 20 million, with 1 million outstanding shares, would therefore have an absolute minimum price of $20/share. (This isn't actually true, but if your stockholders believe your company is worth less than its asset price, perhaps it really is time to just break the company up for scrap.)

      I suppose, if a company's assets were negative - if the company was in major debt - and there was some way to force the shareholders of the company to pay the owed money, then yes, indeed, the stock could and likely would go negative.

      Possibly unfortunately, though, there's no way that can happen - although I personally would be vastly amused if all the SCO stockholders were forced to pay IBM for owning part of such a doomed company, I suppose it would open up an incredible number of legal problems :)

  • The last bit is bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 05, 2006 @05:58AM (#15851526)

    Linux has won in the courts and is winning in the marketplace.

    Linux has not won in the courts. IBM is doing well against SCO - but it isn't over till it's over, and the lawsuit could go on for another year, at least. Trial is currently scheduled for 2007.

    Linux is not winning in the marketplace. Microsoft is winning in the marketplace, it has about 10 times as big a market share as Linux, last time I looked.

    Don't misunderstand me - I'm a big Linux fan, and I'm posting this from my Debian Etch system, which is connected to the Internet thru my Debian Sarge firewall. But you don't win by deluding yourself that the enemy has lost, when in fact it is very far from losing.

  • Analyst's comment missing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Laura_DilDio ( 874259 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @06:13AM (#15851547)
    Where's the Yankee Group? Where's the fathead Laura DiDio? She's been the official SCO Fan-girl from the start. I guess monkey-boy Ballmer didn't command her to make any comments at this time.

  • IBM is winning (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Koyaanisqatsi ( 581196 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @07:29AM (#15851653)
    Don't forget that's IBM that is winning, linux is hitching a ride here.

    If this was happening to a smaller company, maybe it wouldn't have the funds to defend itself and would be gone bankrupt by now.

    The threat is still strong.

  • SCO could have done well. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Morky ( 577776 ) on Saturday August 05, 2006 @07:36AM (#15851667)
    SCO was a strong company back when they had the only commercial UNIX on Intel. They had a big presence in small companies, support from hardware vendors, and good customer service. If they would have just embraced Linux instead of seeing it as a threat, they could have been the major player in Linux for business. They just had really bad, shortsighted leadership.

    • SCO was a strong company back when they had the only commercial UNIX on Intel. They had a big presence in small companies, support from hardware vendors, and good customer service. If they would have just embraced Linux instead of seeing it as a threat, they could have been the major player in Linux for business. They just had really bad, shortsighted leadership.

      Except that The SCO Group (SCOX) isn't that company. It's the company that used to be know as Caldera who bought the UNIX business from OldSCO. F

    • they could have been the major player in Linux for business. They just had really bad, shortsighted leadership.

      Their leaders are in Redmond, but don't worry they are on the same ride. The SCO you are talking about did hitch onto free software. M$ crushed them, just like they did Corel.

      They won't be able to do that much longer. The performance and cost difference between free and non free software is so extreme that the money is moving. Those that don't move will dry up and die. $6,200,000,000 in

  • It is no sign of strength to beat a company which casts baseless claims. The only thing which surprises me is that the stock market took it serious. It was very obvious to everyone that it was fraud from the very beginning. So perhaps the market is not that perfect as some make you believe.

    The extraordinary amount of communication issued to the press during the anti-Linux SCO case should have alerted a real investor about the nature of these claims. Now, I wonder whether US criminal prosecutors will take th

  • Who tagged this "haha"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy&stogners,org> on Saturday August 05, 2006 @08:39AM (#15851806) Homepage
    It's too late for that. The "dump" phase of this pump-and-dump scam may be over, but the crooks responsible have already made millions of dollars through SCOX stock sales. The investors losing money now aren't the executives responsible for a bunch of crooked lawsuits, they're the suckers who fell for the "our copyrights are being violated!" talk.

    Unless there's an SEC investigation, it doesn't matter that some corporate entity called The SCO Group will go down in flames - the people who caused it all made out like bandits.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."

Close