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Caldera/SCO Co-Founder Ransom Love Speaks
securitas writes "CNet has published an interview with Caldera (now SCO Group) co-founder Ransom Love, in which he talks about the Novell acquisition of SuSE, Novell's Linux history, the early history of Caldera, the SCO-IBM lawsuit, his new role at Progeny and open standards. It's a good read that covers a lot of ground in a relatively short space."
The article mentions that Love knew Darl from Novell and brought him on board at Caldera/SCO. Does anybody know what Darl did at Novell? I just wonder what was going through Ransom's head when he decided to hire Darl. Was Darl this superstar executive at Novell or was he the one that was always telling Novell "hey, our IP is being infringed somewhere, let's get on the suing bandwagon"?
I am just wondering what the legacy of Darl was at Novell that made him so suited to be CEO of some company that has morphed into one of the most hated entities in the IT world?
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
No, as someone who's followed the history of both SCO and Caldera, before and after their merger, I'd say Caldera's troubles had a lot more to do with IBM leaving them in the lurch with Project Monterey; the slow growth of all dedicated Linux businesses--remember even Red Hat only recently turned a profit; and the reasons that Love gives in the interview.
Had Love stayed on, I think Caldera/SCO was well on its way to righting itself. And, by now, its stock price would be about what it is today.
Shocking? Not really. Something almost everyone forgets, today's SCO stock price should be divided by four when comparing it to Caldera's bad days. Just before Love left, in May 2002 Caldera had a four to one reverse stock split. Thus, today's SCO price of $13.50 is equal to a Aug. 2001 (Caldera acquires SCO) to May 2002 (4/1 split) price of $3.38. For all the stock excitement SCO has generated, by 'long' measurement, McBride's team still hasn't done that much for the stock. That may explain why they're still so focused on winning at any cost.
But had Love stayed, this would have been ironic, I'm quite sure Caldera/SCO, not SuSE, would now be being acquired by Novell.
Steven