Slashdot Mirror
Baystar Confirms Microsoft Behind SCO Investment
Bruce Perens writes "Business Week has confirmed that Microsoft arranged the Baystar investment in SCO. A managing partner of Baystar says the call wasn't from Gates or Ballmer. But it wouldn't have to be, would it? Obviously, there's more investigation to do." Reader skreuzer writes "Yahoo Finance is reporting that SCO announced that the company's board of directors has authorized management, in its discretion, to purchase up to 1.5 million shares of SCO's common stock over the next 24 months. SCO has approximately 14.4 million shares of common stock issued and outstanding. Any repurchased shares will be held as treasury stock and will be available for general corporate purposes." Newsforge (which is also part of OSDN) is also following the story.
Is there any potential for a counter-suit here? This really seems like unfair behavior on Microsoft's stifle competition via a proxy corporation who'll do their dirty work for them. I hope someone can mount a counter-suit on behalf of the Linux community, and somehow defeat the MSFT legal juggernaut.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
(Have you watched their stock making a run at zero over the course of the week?)
The Flatlander
The evil empire will stop at nothing until it achieves world domination. But, unlike SCO, the do not want to get their hands dirty - they want to appear as the benevolent kingdom...But would stop at nothing to hire professional (or in SCO's case - unprofessional) hit men to rid the world of the evil competition...
Oh well, move along - nothing to see here..
But at least we didnt have to wait until 3:56 PM for our SCO fix..
= Grow a brain...
it's all a corporate powerplay. ms and sco need to get over themselves and get back to the task at hand. computing.
I don't understand. SCO, crappy dying company, takes millions-to-one shot on a huge payoff (or was praying for IBM to settle). Retarded but plausible. But why would Microsoft want to back such a chancy scheme? Bad publicity when the case fails must more than make up for the FUD they've managed to spread.
#define struct union
It seems obvious that SCO's announcement to buy back shares is just another way to raise their stock. But I doubt that many potential investors will trust this announcement - it is very unspecific with such a two year time span. At least during the version trading hour today, the stock didn't exactly jump too high up.
It has been long speculated on here that Microsoft was bankrolling SCO. Now with proof, lets hope that this MS/SCO FUD about the Linux source is seen for what it is by the corporations and most of all the courts.
Well I'm convinced. If a Microsoft spokesman said they have "no direct or indirect financial relationship with Baystar" and Stowell (SCO) said "Microsoft did not orchestrate or participate in the BayStar transaction."...
Then:
1) They must be telling the truth.
2) This must mean they had no involvement in the SCO suit.
??!?!?
Golly gee, can I have another hit off that crack pipe?
They claim it's a good deal for them to invest in
themselves, but is it normal for a company with
seriously dwindling revenue streams to "invest" in
their own stocks? No! So waht purpose could this serve?
They can buy stocks at low market value now and later
sell to a "private investor" at highly inflated prices
with the "investor" saying it's a good deal based upon
Deutche Bank's long term prediction of $45 value and
thus re-fund the SCOG legal war chest.
But why would microsoft recommending SCO be a useful thing to baystar? Microsoft supposedly has no financial dealing with baystar so there's not "favor" to be granted here. And Microsoft obviously had a vested interest in giving the advice and I'm sure baystar was smart enough to see through that--so the advice would have no tangible use.
KEY point: The most benign explanation is that they were merely bringing it to baystars attention and presumbaly did so to many other companies. The key test is then: did they or did they not call hundreds of other speculative investment houses in hopes of convincing one with this long shot advice?
If they did not do so with many other companies then why did they think they had any standing to cold call baystar and give tainted advice? If they just called baystar alone then its very fishy. they must have promised other tangibles. Such as investing in companies baystar recommended back or promising cash influxes and supprt for the lawsuit.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
What's cool about this is that any involvement with Microsoft, no matter how compelling
it may seem in the beginning, is the kiss of death for the other company that gets involved
in a "deal" with Microsoft. They can't help it. Win-Lose is the only outcome that's acceptable to M$.
How this works out to Linux users is unknown, but SCO's fate is sealed:
Ignominy, disgrace, failure, collapse.
This is true, BUT
SCO does not get the money, but people who holds the stock (for example our beloved Darl) do get it.
So it may not be "SCO", but people at SCO...
...remember good 'ol times when IP used to mean Internet Protocol....
The call wasn't directly from Gates or Ballmer?
So what?! That's like saying a Sgt in the Marines actions in Iraq weren't directly ordered by Bush or Cheney. It's what we call in the military the chain of command or maybe the commander's intent. In other words, the commander lets his troops know what he wants done and how much freedom they have accomplishing this goal.
I believe Gates and Ballmer knew what was going on.
This guy is way out there
If I purchase a milliion shares of SCO on the open market, SCO does not see a PENNY of that money. The only time SCO sees money from the sale of stock is when SCO issues NEW stock into the market.
Ahh but if SCOG buys SCOX stock, say at a low price during a profound slump in their share price and does so in a manner as to not cross the written words in the SEC constraints on such purchases then you can get into fun with the accounting department.
Now - you only buy back stock if you
Yes - a company doesn't benefit directly from swings in its stock price, but it can benefit by trading in that stock. Even when that goes sour, clever accounting practices can help you recover that loss in other ways. I haven't peered too closely at SCOs recent manoevres but I seem to remember that any dip in share price allows them to record the conversion of the Series A convertible stock deal with Baystar as income. So you can have it both ways.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
It would certainly be unethical if it's just the Canopy Group's way of transferring money from SCO to Canopy, in exchange for soon-to-be worthless SCOX shares. That's not unlikely, seeing what kind of deals Canopy has done with the companies they own in the past.
That might even count as inisidertrading, depending on circumstances we can't know about, so chances are it's illegal, too.
Actually, this might have interesting repercussions for the Linux desktop. Canopy part-own TrollTech, the company behind Qt. If things go pear-shaped and TrollTech go out of business, the Qt license reverts to a BSD-style license *, thus invalidating the main reason behind choosing GNOME over KDE for UserLinux.
* This is a long-standing deal with something called the Qt Foundation, going back to before the Qt toolkit was GPLed
Good day,
Apart from the fact that SCO seems to have any case at all, the SCO situation brings up a potential situation where IP infringement really occured. Perhaps it even occured in their case as well but we'll never know for sure because of all the BS they created.
What would happen if a company that doesn't release its code in the open source domain, gets parts of its source added to an open source project. For example, by an open source oriented employee? A number of reactions from the company would be possible, mostly to try to limit the damages to its business model.
Such reactions could include:
-Getting the infringing code removed and hope it hasn't spread everywhere; and/or
-Suing the project, the employee, any user for damages; and/or
-Taking it and moving on
I imagine that option 2 would attract a lot of ire from the slashdot crowd.
Spake Blake Stowell:
"Contrary to the speculation of Eric Raymond, Microsoft did not orchestrate or participate in the BayStar transaction."
This if I understand correctly is commercial speech. I wonder how the judges in the many instances of barratry that SCO has indulged in will like the fact that SCO is trying this in the court of public opinion, influencing juries, and all of that with bare lies. Not clear either how the so-called business channels that get all indignant and prissy over Martha Stewart can barely get themselves worked up to even report this. C'mon folks, this is a good and evil story like no movie ever seen.
OK, am I missing something or is this a non-story?
(Yes, I think that something slimy is actually happening...though evidence of it would be good!)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I can only wonder at the number of GPL violations that surely exist in that software. I would advise companies to steer clear of such legally encumbered software, and use the free and clear Linux or BSD operating systems instead.
Why the stock buyback...
Once there are significant amounts of short sellers vs the float, the stock price becomes essentially manipulated by the short sellers. IE, the very action chases away buyers, which forces the stock down, which causes the market makers to start selling and lowering the price to attract buyers to the shares that the shorts are selling etc etc, until the stock price is run into the ground...
One way to short circuit that kind of activity, is to create some sort of floor in the price. A company can do this, by becoming a buyer of thier own stock at a given price. By providing buying action, the shorts are not rewarded, they stop selling the stock, and the behavior of the stock normalizes.
There is no gaurantee this will work. Though it generally works most of the time, but it can be a war of attrition. Similar things happen with national banks and the currency market. And sometimes the banks lose after spending BILLIONS attempting to keep it from happening (Argentina, Mexico, Thailand, just to name a few).
No one is suggesting that the money came from Microsoft. Microsoft brokered the deal - they arranged for Baystar to give SCO the money. That way they could truthfully claim that they were not the source of SCO's money.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
E.g.: Hey Baystar, go invest in this loser trog company to fight our battles, and when we need to do some investment banking transaction or investment, we'll make sure you can get a sweet part of the deal with a really big commission.
Or, Steve and Bill said they'd put alot of money in your hedge funds if you work on this little problem of ours.
Nothing written of course.
it doesn't take too much imagination to think of plenty of reasons.
He says Microsoft didn't put any money into BayStar or the SCO investment. A Microsoft spokesman says that the company has no "direct or indirect" financial relations with BayStar, but declined to comment when asked whether execs called BayStar to suggest investing in SCO.
Okay, so Microsoft didn't actually put any money into it, they simply called Baystar and told them investing would be a good idea? That's a pretty thin rope to hang someone by.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
If I "suggest" to someone that they invest in something that I have no finantial interest in (SCO), that "suggestion" does not create a finantial interest. At this time.
I speculate that M$ "suggested" to BayStar that sometime in the future, perhaps, maybe, the software giant might possibly make some kind of investment in BayStar, of course totally unrelated to any investments BayStar might have made in SCO, hint-hint-wink-wink...
What's funny is that a few months ago when all us paranoid tin-foil hat folks where saying M$ had their fingers all over this, people said "go back in your basement, way too much illuminati, blaw, blaw, blaw..."
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
If Microsoft invested $50 million in SCO, that would make sense. $50 million can buy tham a lot of anti-Linux FUD. But what does Baystar gain? When SCO loses their absurd lawsuits and disappears, so does Baystar's 50 million.
C'mon folks, this is a good and evil story like no movie ever seen.
No it isn't. To most business-minded folks, MS isn't evil - it's the pinnacle of corporate success. This is just how the game gets played. If it's illegal then sure it might get press, but just being dirty scoundrals isn't enough to get anyone interested.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Well Paul Allen a high ranking executive in Microsoft and its 2nd largest shareholder is also the largest investor in Baystar.
So it probably just wasn't some guy.
Just saying it like it are.
McDonald's knew people were burning themselves, and they continued to heat their coffee to extremes just short of boiling.
They knew that 700 people out of every 1,000,000,000 were burning themselves, and they thought that was probably about right.
Most rational people would agree.
What a damning indictment of capitalism when you can automatically presume that any large company is unethical by default. That's it's impossible to grow a company without playing dirty.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
Probably not, but Microsoft isn't afraid of lawsuits (and why should they?), they are afraid that people see through all the SCO-mess as a meaningless FUD-campaign.
" No one is suggesting that the money came from Microsoft."
Not yet. If people keep digging I bet they will find the body sooner or later. Why would a bank make a 50 million dollar investment just because MS said so? Doesn't that seem weird to you?
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
Well, let's face it. Look at the news. Enron, Arthur Anderson, Martha Stewart/ImClone, Haliburton, K-mart, Wal-Mart, WorldCom, AOL Time-Warner, the various SCO follies, Xerox, various energy companies, and so on, and so on...
Bad news sells. It also promulgates faster then good news. So, maybe all of capitalism isn't doomed, but not for lack of trying by these companies.
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
SCO has $50 million from the BayStar deal, with a redemption condition if the stock goes below ~$8.50 for 25 consecutive trading days.
Mod parent up. That is exactly what is going on. That's why they initiated the buyback.
The Microsoft "representative" was an executive...and executives are empowered to make decisions for the company they are an executive of, no matter the time of day or whether or not they're in the office. Think about how many deals get made on golf courses, etc, and that'll give you an idea about when executives are able to conduct business.
Well, it makes complete sense. Use SCO capital (from MS) to buy SCO stock. Increase SCO stock price. Sell your own shares. You couldnt have MS pay money DIRECTLY to the SCO principles could you? I mean, really, running SCO into the ground with this obviously un-winnable ANTI-GNU/Linux crusade would mean that the SCO board would be purposefully destroying SCO -- they'd end up in Jail for not properly administering SCO.
This is a perfect method of actually paying SCO directors to destroy SCO* for the benefit of M$.
*not that SCO really had a chance w/ x86 unix -- GNU/Linux is going to dominate ALL Unix in short order.
No, he said it's impossible to grow that big without being partially dirty. I always love that people criticise "big government" while believing corporations don't have the same faults, or vice versa. Power corrupts.
It is a proven fact Microsoft has played dirty, often blatantly illegal. When you view companies of that size, there is a preponderance of evidence that they have all done something dirty. No one is claiming they are the mafia, but they've all done things which were unethical even if they weren't always illegal.
As for Capitalism, it's broken by design; it requires third-party regulation by force else the bigger powers will bully the smaller powers and so on down the line. I won't speak for other countries, but regulation in the U.S. can't keep up with innovation and so you often get bad regulation or no regulation. Hence how Microsoft, and plenty of others, managed to continue for so long unchecked. From what I've seen, other nations have the exact same problem.
Someone asked if I had patched against MSBlast; I said yes, I installed Linux.
"Whoever's right will prevail in the end."
Yeah? What planet do you live on?
Karma Schmarma
I'm sure that had nothing to do with the huge sums of money Gates donated to the Bush-Cheney campaign, though.