Friday, December 01, 2006
12/4 SNR
It was an awful week for SCO, which means it was pretty cool for the rest of us. All sorts of fun stuff to cover right now. I ought to have posted most of this on Friday, but I didn't get around to it. Yes, yes, I realize that evil never sleeps. I try to keep up as best I can, but I do have to sleep now and then, plus I have errands to run, and UML diagrams to grind out in RL, and mass quantities of beer to enjoy, and so on, and so forth. So in any case, here's what's happened in our fun little world here since about last Thursday:
- The top story is Novell's new PSJ motion, this time dealing with Novell's contractual right to order SCO to waive its claims against IBM and others. It seems pretty straighforward to me. The way things have dragged on over the last few years, I'm reluctant to call anything a slam dunk anymore, but I don't see any obvious way SCO can defend against this one. Also see Lamlaw. Slashdot story here, if you're curious what the world's dweeby 15-year-olds think of the latest twist. It probably has something to do with Soviet Russia, or Beowulf clusters, or whatever.
- The stock tanking isn't as important a story in the larger scheme of things, but it has one thing the court saga conspicuously lacks: Instant gratification. Watching the stock drop last week was a lot of fun. Sure, they'll probably manipulate it back up over the next week or two, but I expect there was at least some temporary wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments down in SCO HQ, and just imagining that makes me very happy. Some stories about the stock tanking:
- The Register: "SCO shares collapse under weight of ruling"
- Forbes: "Investors Abandon SCO". (And you can read the Freepers' take on the Forbes story here, if you're into that sort of thing.)
- eWeek: "Judge Rules Against SCO; Stock Drops".
- Stock Guru: "SCOX Bombed After Losing Case".
- The Register: "SCO shares collapse under weight of ruling"
- A couple more stories about Kimball's ruling, from Techworld, Bloomberg (via an affiliate), CBR, TechNewsWorld.
- From the blogosphere, Kimball-related posts at Z Trek, Neowin Back Page, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Boycott Novell, Straight out of my skull, & Dr Bill: The Computer Curmudgeon.
- And a topical cartoon at Geek and Poke.
- Meanwhile, the earlier Ars Technica story has been updated to include coverage of the subsequent Wells ruling.
- The SLC Trib's story from a couple of days back quoted a pro-SCO "analyst" named Bill Hughes, who insisted SCO still had a strong case, blah, blah. Keen-eyed readers over on the boards noticed that Hughes was a keynote speaker back at SCOForum '06. I suppose in the tech analyst field, you're considered honest and dependable if you stay bought past the point a normal person would've jumped ship. Hughes features in this amusing piece about long-range analyst forecasts.
- A few more pieces about Vista:
- ZDNet: "Five reasons to love--and hate--Windows Vista". Despite being on ZDNet, seems aimed at non-techies, or at most quasi-techie PHBs.
- InformationWeek: "Vista: Microsoft's Last 'Big Bang' Operating System?"
- PC World: "Vista launch more whimper than bang for businesses"
- The Australian: "Troubling vista for Microsoft".
- ZDNet: "Five reasons to love--and hate--Windows Vista". Despite being on ZDNet, seems aimed at non-techies, or at most quasi-techie PHBs.
- A mini-rant about MS's odd pricing policies in the Netherlands.
- Yet another piece about the MS-Novell deal that mentions SCO in passing. I can't quite tell what the guy's thesis is here, other than that he's not a big fan of the deal.
- Not everyone loves AMD's new QuadFX. The first of those two links is to an ABC News story. It's too bad the word "kludge" hasn't entered the general public's vocabulary; if it had, the QuadFX would be much easier to explain.
- In other AMD-related news, the Feds are expanding their probe about price-fixing and other anticompetitive behavior in the graphics card industry
By brx0 @ 3:43 PM 
