Wednesday, October 31, 2007
11/1 SNR
So the SCO universe is in a brief holding pattern until November 6th, when all hell is scheduled to break loose. That's when the BK court plans to hear arguments on a stack of motions from both SCO and Novell. The two biggies are SCO's petition to hold the proposed emergency fire sale auction, and Novell's to unstay the SCO v. Novell case and let Kimball sort out the conversion issue. If the BK courts worked like general-purpose courts, I'd expect all the motions to be taken under advisement, with an eventual ruling denying all the motions that might dispose of the matter one way or the other. But as PJ notes here, BK court moves fast. Maybe that's overgeneralizing; some BK cases drag on for years and years with no end in sight, but right now the SCO BK matter appears to be moving much faster than the Novell & IBM cases ever did. It's still possible nobody will come away with a win on the 6th, but it may turn out to be a very critical moment in the SCO saga. If either side gets a win, they win big, and the possible outcomes appear to be mutually exclusive, so the judge can't simply approve all the motions on the table. Either SCO weasels out of the last few years of litigation, or Novell takes a key step toward putting SCO out of business for good, or possibly neither, but definitely not both.
Oh, and there's that delisting hearing on the 8th to worry about right after that. In the event SCO's auction gets the go-ahead on the 6th, I wonder if they'll keep fighting the delisting battle or not. With the Unix biz gone, SCO would be down to the ongoing lawsuits plus a few random odds and ends, and may have no RL presence except for a mailbox at BS&F headquarters. There are plenty of OTC, pink sheet, and grey market companies operating that way, but they don't keep you on the Nasdaq if you don't have any employees anymore.
Meanwhile, the proposed sale is getting a lot of press, understandably. SCO's Unix business may be a sad remnant of what it once was, but a lot of people still care who owns it.
Stories at:
And on comp.unix.sco.misc, not a single word about the proposed sale. You'd think there'd be a little "what does the deal mean for us?" speculation, but no.
I can't find the document now, but one of the recent BK docs mentions that SCO's once-vaunted "DT4" Me Inc./Daytimer app has shuffled off to the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky. The Daytimer company pulled the plug, and SCO's lawyers are considering legal action. Yeah. It'll be just like Project Monterey all over again, and SCO almost made trillions off that one, except for the losing repeatedly in court part. To the moon!!!
Meanwhile, here's a piece about SCO's mysterious litigation in Germany. The article suggests SCO's misrepresenting the case to the BK court, and they're actually trying to silence a critic of theirs over across the pond. All of that would be entirely in character for SCO. I'd like to know more about what's going on here. The redoubtable Al P. mentions the case in his recently filed "Objections of Petrofsky to the Motions of the Debtors".
And for the sake of completeness, the Salt Lake Tribune's piece on SCO's recent layoffs. I actually started a post about it, but it was all schadenfreude and gloating, and writing it felt kind of icky, so I nuked it. So just briefly and for the record, I'm just fine with the court's order sealing the names and personal details of those laid off. It's not that I buy SCO's hysterical hyperbole about ex-employees being harrassed, because I don't see that happening in real life. I just don't see it as very relevant, and the poor chumps have suffered enough already. They drank the Kool-Aid for years on end and followed the Dear Leader all the way into BK court, only to be thrown under the bus when York showed up and started flashing money around. That's got to sting a little. So if anyone's inclined to turn state's evidence, they'll do so without any prompting by well-meaning Linux supporters. It would be interesting to know which departments were affected by the cuts. I'm sure potential bidders would like to know if, for example, the layoffs were all senior Unix dev guys in the New Jersey office, or if they were just fluffy empty-suit jobs like "Community Outreach Coordinator" or "VP of Marketing".
Oh, and there's that delisting hearing on the 8th to worry about right after that. In the event SCO's auction gets the go-ahead on the 6th, I wonder if they'll keep fighting the delisting battle or not. With the Unix biz gone, SCO would be down to the ongoing lawsuits plus a few random odds and ends, and may have no RL presence except for a mailbox at BS&F headquarters. There are plenty of OTC, pink sheet, and grey market companies operating that way, but they don't keep you on the Nasdaq if you don't have any employees anymore.
Meanwhile, the proposed sale is getting a lot of press, understandably. SCO's Unix business may be a sad remnant of what it once was, but a lot of people still care who owns it.
Stories at:
- IT Jungle: "SCO to Sell Unix Wares for $36 Million?". The article briefly mentions that among the treasures York wants to buy are employees' desktop PCs and even the office furniture. Although I vaguely recall that SCO leased its office furniture from a Canopy tentacle at one time. I don't know if that's still true or not, and if I was Canopy I'm not sure I'd want my chairs back after SCO employees had been using them for the last few years. But you have to admit it'd make for an amusing court case.
The piece also speculates about a "fairy tale ending", under which the new York/JDG entity releases the UnixWare and OpenServer code under an open source license. I seriously doubt that's in the cards, but it sure makes for a nice fairy tale, at least. - CNet (Shankland): "SCO hopes selling Unix will raise $36 million"
- InternetNews: "SCO puts Unix up for sale"
- InfoWorld: "SCO To Sell Unix Business?"
- El Reg: "SCO gets offer for Unix biz"
- The Inq: "SCO wants bankruptcy court approval to sell its Unix business". This is story initially reported SCO already had approval to do the deal, a goof the author humbly apologizes for at the end. It's a good piece, and even mentions the possible ties between York and Acacia (of patent troll fame). I'm not entirely sold on that angle just yet, but I do think it's reasonable to regard York with suspicion.
- VNUnetVNUNet
- ComputerWorld"SCO gets 'potential' $36M offer to sell Unix business"
- TechRepublic"SCO wants to sell Unix for cash to continue Linux fight"
- ComputerWorld Australia"SCO Has a Buyer, Pending Bankruptcy Approval"
- Provo Daily Herald"SCO Gets $36M Bid"
- Linux Journal: "Someone Actually Wants SCO?"
- And finally SYS-CON, i.e. MOG: "SCO Gets $16M Offer For Its Unix Business", if you're curious what ~$10k per quarter of SCO's FUD money buys these days.
And on comp.unix.sco.misc, not a single word about the proposed sale. You'd think there'd be a little "what does the deal mean for us?" speculation, but no.
I can't find the document now, but one of the recent BK docs mentions that SCO's once-vaunted "DT4" Me Inc./Daytimer app has shuffled off to the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky. The Daytimer company pulled the plug, and SCO's lawyers are considering legal action. Yeah. It'll be just like Project Monterey all over again, and SCO almost made trillions off that one, except for the losing repeatedly in court part. To the moon!!!
Meanwhile, here's a piece about SCO's mysterious litigation in Germany. The article suggests SCO's misrepresenting the case to the BK court, and they're actually trying to silence a critic of theirs over across the pond. All of that would be entirely in character for SCO. I'd like to know more about what's going on here. The redoubtable Al P. mentions the case in his recently filed "Objections of Petrofsky to the Motions of the Debtors".
And for the sake of completeness, the Salt Lake Tribune's piece on SCO's recent layoffs. I actually started a post about it, but it was all schadenfreude and gloating, and writing it felt kind of icky, so I nuked it. So just briefly and for the record, I'm just fine with the court's order sealing the names and personal details of those laid off. It's not that I buy SCO's hysterical hyperbole about ex-employees being harrassed, because I don't see that happening in real life. I just don't see it as very relevant, and the poor chumps have suffered enough already. They drank the Kool-Aid for years on end and followed the Dear Leader all the way into BK court, only to be thrown under the bus when York showed up and started flashing money around. That's got to sting a little. So if anyone's inclined to turn state's evidence, they'll do so without any prompting by well-meaning Linux supporters. It would be interesting to know which departments were affected by the cuts. I'm sure potential bidders would like to know if, for example, the layoffs were all senior Unix dev guys in the New Jersey office, or if they were just fluffy empty-suit jobs like "Community Outreach Coordinator" or "VP of Marketing".
By brx0 @ 11:55 PM 
