SCO Group sent Delisting Notice by NASDAQ

[richlevy]

NASDAQ has sent the SCO Group a delisting notice

For the uninitiated, SCO Group was a Linux distributor that bought rights to UNIX and DR-DOS on the cheap. They then claimed Linux contained elements of UNIX and began sending letters to large companies running Linux demanding payment of licensing fees. It should be understood that SCO took the name of the software and did not actually create SCO UNIX.

Most of the software SCO sells was originally written by someone else - AT&T, Novell etc. If you include the Linux community that SCO was originally partnered with, they are pretty much suing everyone who ever had a business relationship with, and their customers.

Their stock back around 2000 was selling for over $80 a share and is now selling for about 80 cents. When they started suing everyone in sight their stock bumped up to about $20 a share. A cynical person could say this whole lawsuit business was a giant 'pump and dump' scam, with insiders selling out while the stock was run up by the lawsuits.

Now they're in danger of being delisted. Unfortunately, the **&*rs behind this whole mess probably cashed out long ago.

Still, it looks like their vultures have come home to roost. UT has not put up a 'tap dancing on their grave' smiley, so this will have to do.

Timeline of SCO-Linux dispute

[Perry Winkle]

Glad to hear it.

[Beestie]

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of ... well, you know.

[elSicomoro]

Glad they're going in the tank...one of the dumbest lawsuits I've ever heard was them suing IBM, I think. I believe I read about it here.

[tw]

Originally Posted by sycamore

Glad they're going in the tank...one of the dumbest lawsuits I've ever heard was them suing IBM, I think.

Put yourself in SCO's president's chair. They bought the rights to UNIX. Suddenly Unix is being distributed for free. What would you do as that president or the company's BoDs? Just give up, fire everyone, and quit? Then the officers and BoDs would be sued. What choice did they have?

[Undertoad]

There are many many companies making excellent money from this "free" Unix. Redhat's market cap is $4B, partly by partnering with IBM instead of fighting them. Oracle/Novell are trying to figure out how to leverage their abilities. SCO was in the perfect position to be the top of them all. Utter, utter morons.

[elSicomoro]

Originally Posted by tw

Put yourself in SCO's president's chair. They bought the rights to UNIX. Suddenly Unix is being distributed for free. What would you do as that president or the company's BoDs? Just give up, fire everyone, and quit? Then the officers and BoDs would be sued. What choice did they have?

IBM offered to pull the proprietary pieces out, but SCO wouldn't have it. What could have been solved fairly easily has become a costly battle and may spell the end of SCO. Perhaps they fought too hard.

[tw]

Originally Posted by sycamore

IBM offered to pull the proprietary pieces out, but SCO wouldn't have it. What could have been solved fairly easily has become a costly battle and may spell the end of SCO.

If IBM only removed 'offending' code, then SCO was still done - bankrupt. SCO was doing the only thing they could to survive. You cannot fault them for it. They paid big bucks for Unix. They were responsible to so many stockholders. SCO was only doing what was necessary to survive.

Now if you can provide them with another answer, what would that be? Remember one of the most fundamental requirements of the executives - their responsibility to stockholders: survive. The only way one can legitimately attack SCO: if they had another option and did not take it. SCO had no choice. SCO had to survive. It is management’s obligation to stockholders.

One should have much sympathy for SCO. They got caught in a no-win situation. Shame. Because when they bought Unix, they were only trying to save a product stifled and almost destroyed by AT&T MBAs.

[Undertoad]

The only way one can legitimately attack SCO: if they had another option and did not take it.

There are many many companies making excellent money from this "free" Unix. Redhat's market cap is $4B, partly by partnering with IBM instead of fighting them. Oracle/Novell are trying to figure out how to leverage their abilities. SCO was in the perfect position to be the top of them all. Utter, utter morons.

SCO had no choice. SCO had to survive.

They won't survive. They had infinite choices. They picked the wrong ones.

Redhat has now moved to the NYSE while SCO faces de-listing. Before Redhat ever existed, SCO had a support system, training, a serious customer base, and everything else Redhat had to develop from scratch. They were well-liked in the silly valley and had lots of great people. They simply had no vision.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by tw

If IBM only removed 'offending' code, then SCO was still done - bankrupt. SCO was doing the only thing they could to survive. You cannot fault them for it. They paid big bucks for Unix. They were responsible to so many stockholders. SCO was only doing what was necessary to survive.

This isn't a person breaking speed limits to get to a hospital. If a company has to file frivolous and malicious lawsuits "to survive", then it shouldn't.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by tw

SCO had no choice. SCO had to survive. [It was] almost destroyed by AT&T MBAs.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

[SCO] had infinite choices. They picked the wrong ones.... They simply had no vision.

tw = AT&T MBA = tw = AT&T MBA.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

This isn't a person breaking speed limits to get to a hospital. If a company has to file frivolous and malicious lawsuits "to survive", then it shouldn't.

So how do you tell that to the stockholders? If management did not do something, then stockholders would be filing those 'frivolous' lawsuits against management. In fact stockholders would be wrong to not file frivolous suite. Somebody was going to be sued.

SCO paid big bucks for Unix long before Linux existed. SCO could not make a profit on that investment by selling free Unix. For that matter, various Linux distributors are only doing average - even without a large debt that SCO incurred.

If SCO sold Linux, then SCO was dead. You would blame SCO for doing something -buying the rights to Unix - BEFORE Linux even existed?

SCO did not get into the business to destroy Linux. SCO purchased the license and rights to Unix BEFORE Linux existed. Suddenly Linux shows up and starts selling SCO's product under the Linux name. What is management suppose to do? If did not file suit to protect their licenses, then what were their options? It is hearsay in business to surrender - give up and declare bankruptcy without a fight. A #1 objective of any business - to survive. No manager could ever do that - surrender. If he did, frivolous lawsuits would be filed against him.

Agreed: what SCO did was not productive. But they did everything right - and got slammed by something nobody saw coming: Linux. I have sympathy for SCO. Not just for the company; for its stockholders. They got caught and destroyed by something that nobody saw coming. They did not try to buy in and destroy a Linux industry. They owned the UNIX business when suddenly something came along and did what SCO thought only they owned.

If you think they should not have sued, then what should they have done? Because there were no options, then frivolous lawsuits were inevitable. At least the one’s SCO filed set legal precedence for this whole new business concept. SCO was simply a victim of something that nobody saw coming.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by tw

So how do you tell that to the stockholders?

"You made a bad investment."

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

There are many many companies making excellent money from this "free" Unix. Redhat's market cap is $4B, partly by partnering with IBM instead of fighting them. Oracle/Novell are trying to figure out how to leverage their abilities. SCO was in the perfect position to be the top of them all.

None had the debt that SCO incurred to own Unix. Those Linux companies came to market flush with stock market money - and no debt. And still some of those Linux companies failed. Failed when they did not even pay for the license.

Meanwhile SCO's business model was dependent on a license that only they owned. SCO could never match what Red Hat could offer IBM. SCO had paid for their license. Red Hat did not. SCO had already sold their stock to buy a license. SCO could not compete against companies that paid nothing for the product and could still sell stock.

So where are these massive profits in Novell? Novell also had to sell out. Novell also could not compete against competitors whose product cost them nothing. Maybe SCO should have sold out to Oracle for pennies on dollar. But instead, SCO decided to survive. No one can blame them for taking the only financially viable option - protect the value of their license.

Others are saying that SCO should have burned a big buck license - and declare it valueless. What company simply burns their only asset? No SCO stockholder would have accepted that. SCO was clearly blindsided by something that nobody saw coming - Linux. SCO could never stay solvent on the Red Hat model. SCO already had too much invested in the Unix license. The resulting lawsuits decided one thing. The license that SCO bought had zero value. In business, that was a severe wake-up call to all companies. But again, the Silicon Valley created new standards for business – as confirmed by the resulting legal resolutions.

I have sympathy for the SCO stockholders. They had no reason to expect that a massive freight train would hit them. Without that license, SCO could not survive in the Unix business.

[Undertoad]

AT&T brought effectively a similar lawsuit against (Unix derivative) BSD in 1993 and lost.

SCO paid big bucks for Unix long before Linux existed.

http://www.robotwisdom.com/linux/timeline.html

1991, Sep: linux 0.01

1992: Jan: Linux 0.12 = 0.9

1992: 22 Jan: 1st Linux FAQ

1993: Novell buys "Unix" (USL = Unix Systems Labs) from AT&T (for $332M)

1995: SCO buys "Unix" from Novell (for 6.1M shares of SCO stock) (street val. $100M I've heard)

2000: Aug: Caldera acquires (parts of) SCO

http://www.linux.org/news/sco/timeline.html

2000, Dec: The part of SCO not purchased by Caldera is renamed Tarantella

2002 Aug: Caldera changes name to SCO Group. They state that they are going to concentrate on their Unix development.

http://www.dvorak.org/scotimeline/

2003 Jan: SCO claims they want to find out if there is SCO intellectual property in Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and versions of BSD. McBride singles out Mac OS X: If you pull down (Mac) OS X you'll see a lot of copyright postings that point back to Unix Systems Laboratories, which is what we hold."

2003: Caldera/SCO announces the filing of $1B lawsuit against IBM