SCO's Finances, Legal Case Take Hits 333
geomon writes "This afternoon, SCO will host a conference call where they will present '04 third quarter financial data. The news isn't expected to be comforting to SCO investors as they are coming up a bit short; earnings and dividends will take a substantial hit. The only bright spot for the company is the settlement with BayStar, a deal that will leave most of the cash they received from the investment house in the hands of SCO management, if only for a short time." Reader ak_hepcat writes "Groklaw has posted the text for the latest IBM memorandum in its case against SCO. In a nutshell, IBM accuses SCO of not only wrangling the legal process to keep delaying the eventual resolution of this case, but they go so far as to pull the curtain away and show that this table never had any legs to begin with. I'm no marksman, but I can tell when something is full of holes."
Looney Tunes (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to amuse me, now it annoys me. I'm just waiting for them to shrivel up and go away.
watch the future, not the past (Score:5, Insightful)
Watch what they hint at and see the reaction in their stock price next week after everyone gets back from Summer vacation and the real traders start to move things en masse.
I wonder what Gene Amdahl thinks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looney Tunes (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh. Example from the Motion: (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a fun read. I'll be really suprised if they don't get a summary judgement in their favor.
It really underlines the brilliance of IBMs legal team, because now they can point back to all the shit SCO said, show clearly that they are either unable or unwilling to back it up with fact, and hit them with big ugly damages just for saying it.
Re:Yet Again (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not crazy about IBM, or think they are some shining knight. As an outsider, who uses Linux for somethings, Windows for others, I just don't see anyway SCO can win. None of their arguements have any basis in logic, not that the Law is always logical. I think this whole thing was a scam, to make money and get bought. They seriously miscalculated, and I hope they go to jail for it.
Please play Devils Advocate and tell us what we are not seeing, give us ONE SHREAD of proof that IBM has done anything wrong. I am open to your reply.
Re:There's a better Groklaw article. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Novell suit is a "slander of title". Given that the copyrights are in dispute, it will be quite easy for the judge to grant Novell's dismissal. The Judge would not have to go as far as to say that Novell owns the copyrights, only that there is a genuine dispute over them.
IBM's PSJ, on the other hand, is more about SCO's claims in he media that IBM is stealing UNIX to put into Linux. It's not about the direct claims SCO has made in court.
In order for the two judgements both be granted for the same grounds, the Judge would have to one-up Novell's claim and say that Novell owns the copyrights.
That would be very interesting indeed, and would pretty much wrap it up for SCO. I'm hoping for that, but IMHO it's likely that the Judge will grant both requests, but on different grounds. Novell will be granted because the wrong kind of suit was filed. IBM will be granted on the Lanham act. SCO will continue to persue their other claims and spin the losses as though they had won something.
IANAL.
Re:Yet Again (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that SCO is not in huge trouble. They have recently laid off a bunch of fairly key middle managers in the profitable SCO UNIX branch. The engineers are not yet on the chopping block, but the end is near when you let go the marketing and product management people on products. They're going to decline from there.
I also know a bunch of corporate and intellecutal property attorneys in real life, one of whom is my father. They're all wondering what the heck SCO has been thinking with the filings over the last year. Both factually and legally very weak filings.
You're Kidding, Right? (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO execs made money regardless (Score:2, Insightful)
thats just plain evil.
Re:Illegal to discriminate against SCO employees? (Score:5, Insightful)
Showdown - Sept. 15th. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you've read the legal briefs, you should know by now that both Novell & IBM have hammered on SCO's counsel for asserting some rather convenient but inconsistant things before the judge. In other words, they assert whatever is most beneficial to their case--leaving SCO with a few more arguements, but no consistant case. While they might be able to make that slide a bit better when they're talking as two separate cases, saying different things about the two different cases while discussing them in front of the same judge can't help them any--they'll have pick a side of some of those fences they're sitting on and stick with it.
Problem is, IBM & Novell have them trapped in a narrow pass, effectively, due to some good lawyering on both of their sides. They're going to have to face the music one way or another--if they take one way out of that pass they're in, IBM will get them, whereas Novell is coming down the other side. In other words, SCO is being attacked on two fronts with no retreat, and IBM is now a bit pissed off with SCO's lawyers after the last few tricks (such as citing a Westlaw headnote without attribution, using a priviledge IBM document as an exhibit in clear violation of one of the discovery agreements with IBM, and a few other things I can't remember right now...). Marbux [groklaw.net] and AllParadox [groklaw.net] on Groklaw posted on SCO's malfeasance [groklaw.net] better than I can, and both of those two are lawyers, though they still put up a few disclaimers about not taking what they say as legal advice.
Anyhow, unless this is a mistake by the court in having them all meet up at the same in front of the same judge (possible, but doubtful), you can expect SCO to be routed--their lawyers seem harried, disorganized and ready to have their asses handed to them just as soon as IBM & Novell are done with them.
Mark your calendars, folks--if this is what it looks like, SCO is going to have one hell of a time getting out of this with anything but a ruling which further weakens them. Even if SCO has an ace up their sleeves, I'm not sure they can be holding any better than aces & eights--the dead man's hand.
Re:Illegal to discriminate against SCO employees? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Home Simpson? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00. With Enron, you would have $16.50 of the original $1,000.00. With Worldcom, you would have less than $5.00 left. If you had bought $1,000.00 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cent deposit, you would have $214.00. Based on the above, my current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.
NOw I am not sure on the current price of Nortel, or am I sure anyone would be able to ride it from top to now without taking profits (lol I mean losses)
P.S. in Ontario Canada (where I and Nortel are from) beer cans do indeed have 10 cent deposits.
Like the old stock broker saying...
"We'll take your money and my experience and turn that into my money and your experience."
Re:You're Kidding, Right? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Please do not rely on a litigant's motion papers to prove a point. [
Have you actually *read* each side's filings over the past year? I've read many of them, including the latest round. SCO's lawyers come off sounding like drunken frat boys on a dare. IBM's wrecking crew sound like The Terminator, unwavering, unimpressed, and about to crush you under metal alloy heel.
You really need to read the entire filing on this one. It's night and day.
Saying you can't judge the case based on filings is like saying you can't judge the likely outcome of a football match by looking at the players, where one team is a bunch of kids in nappies and the other are bouncing the ball around the circle with their heads.
Re:You're Kidding, Right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people have speculated, without other evidence, that the intention is to ask for an appeal on the basis that SCOX lacked competent representation. I consider that unlikely. I consider it far more likely that no competent lawyer wants to be associated with a case that's so bad. But I have no special knowledge, so this is an incompetent opinion.
Re:Objective viewpoint (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh. Example from the Motion: (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a fun read. I'll be really suprised if they don't get a summary judgement in their favor.
Don't forget that Microsoft has been bankrolling this Bataan Death March of litigation from the very beginning. Any non-M$-bankrolled attorney would have had a "come to Jesus" talk with these clowns long ago. I hope IBM does get summary judgment and I hope SCO gets sanctioned under FRCP 11 [cornell.edu] for bringing this load of crap and for filing the inevitable frivolous appeals. Won't make a difference, though, since SCO will have long since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy^Wprotection from creditors while Darl and the gang skip the country with all that money stashed in their Swiss bank accounts.
However, don't make the mistake of thinking IBM's eventually prevailing on summary judgment will be the end. No, to quote Churchill, that will be "at most, the end of the beginning." An appeal will surely follow. All the while, M$ gets to spread FUD about how Linux infringes IP rights. The PHBs will buy it and will stay with the "safe" choice. All the while, M$ will be regrouping. What's next, a BIOS that locks out "non-approved" (read: non-Microsoft) software?
Re:It's still intriguing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the technologies that IBM believes they can benefit more from by making free (as in beer and as in GPL) they make free. Those they believe they can make more profit from selling (like WebSphere) they keep closed.
Don't forget the GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they have to pull their Linux distro, which they've probably already done by now. No biggy to them (though they'd have to start negotiating royalties to be able to support their existing customers)
But, consider this - it's not just IBM's copyrighted works they lose the rights to. Based on that precedent, they could soon be hit with a massive class action lawsuit by thousands of people who have written software under the GPL, demanding that they stop distributing it with UnixWare, as they have no license (and possibly pay damages for copyright violation, if they have any money left by then). Imagine - a commercial UNIX, where if you want any GPL'ed software, you'll have to install it from source yourself, and track and deploy your own updates. Their UNIX would go from a more or less enterprise class OS, to something not quite as useful as DOS overnight.
Best Paragraph Nominee (Score:3, Insightful)
"SCO's present assertion...that SCO has not had sufficient time to perform the requisite analyses of Linux and the UNIX code it claims to have copyrighted, and that such analyses could take 25,000 man-years, obviously rings hollow. It appears that SCO's litigation strategy now is simply to seek delay for delay's sake. SCO, by its own admission, has already performed the analyses it needed, but has not come forward with any evidence that would a create genuine issue of material fact as to copyright infringement in this case. In this situation, summary judgment is appropriate; SCO should not be given additional time to perform analyses it admits it has already performed and have apparently (despite SCO's public claims) turned up nothing" (emphasis added).
OTOH maybe the judge should grant a stay until SCO has completed the 25,000 man-years of analyses it says it needs. A staff of 100 could finish the job in 250 years; surely BayStar can keep pouring money in for that long?
Evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
I've no idea why you think license purhaces don't count, since it's a pretty standard money laundering technique. But we've also learned that Microsoft initiated the Baystar inventment [businessweek.com] and while they claimed that there was no financial involvement from Microsoft, a white paper on Baystar's own website lists Micosoft and Vulcan ventures [baystarcapital.com] as two of their major investors. It has also come out that two of the other "licensees" (SUN & EV1) were influenced by Microsoft in their descision to purchase licenses (CA, the other major licensee, was given the license as part of a settlement agreement).
That pretty much covers all of SCO's funding in this venture. If you run down the standard checklist:
-- MarkusQ
Re:Heh. Example from the Motion: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it's a thought.