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EV1Servers.Net's CEO Regrets SCO Deal
spafbnerf writes "Everyone Internet's CEO Robert Marsh, when asked his feelings about the SCO deal almost a month ago responds: 'Would I do it again? No. I'll go on the record as saying that,' Marsh said. 'I certainly know a lot more today than I knew a month ago, in a lot of respects.'"
Someone coming out and admitting he made a mistake, but at the time was trying to do the best for his company deserves respect. We need more people like that in the industry!
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
Robert Marsh is an honorable businessman. He did his deal with SCO, and abided by it thinking that it was in the best interest of his business to pay off SCO to get them to go away.
And, it turns out SCO, in its usual behavior, spun the deal in a way that generated false rumors and is now trying to use EV1 as a model for future deals. The fact that Marsh is now telling the public that he is experiencing buyer's remorse should serve as a warning to all other hosting companies.
now what am I supposed to do with 10 gallons of tar and a sack of feathers?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wonder if he regrests it because he didn't anticipate the backlash, or because he just now understands that SCO is/was blowing smoke up his ass.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
IMHO there is no point talking about the past. The good question is what they will do about it.
I personally think that people are too hard on him anyways. Its not like he is trying to perpetuate SCO's attack on the world, he was just trying to protect his company and his customers, thats decent to me.
snowulf.com
If I were an investor, I would be asking why Robert didn't take a week and educate himself before bowing to SCO.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
He says he regrets his decision.. but the bigger question is WHY does he regret it? The public backlash, the lack of evidence from SCO? Is this a PR spin, or something that directly affects his company.... Just a thought...
why he is a CEO in the first place?
Who makes a decision like that only to turn around a month later and say he would have done the exact opposite. If I were a shareholder, that wouldn't inspire confidence in my CEO... sheesh!
-A
Some people said they didn't want Marsh using their money to fund SCO. Me, I don't care if he uses it to feed a massive cocaine addiction, AS LONG AS MY BOX AND HIS NETWORK ARE ROCK-SOLID.
The poor guy did the deal thinking he was just buying something akin to fire insurance, and boy did he get burned.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
Yours is to be an example of what not to do, and why not to do it.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
ev1servers.net features as one of Microsoft's case studies. It's possible that there's some kind of Microsoft/SCO/EV1Servers connection... so... look at all of this, including the 'announced regret' with a jaded eye.
However, he still made the decision to purchase the licenses and now he is in a contract with SCO. Now that SCO has him in a contract, they can (and judging by their previous actions, will) sue him if they feel he is in violation of said contract. Keep in mind all of the people they have sued thus far have been people that are or were contract holders.
I hope he is not hosting any linux kernel source code or some such thing on any of his customers' websites, because I am sure that SCO will find a way to sue him for distributing their so-called intellectual property.
Moving forward, this just goes to show why you don't ask advice from any old lawyer on technical law matters. You need a lawyer who understands what is going on out there in the tech world so you can make an informed decision regarding your business and not waste countless amounts of money into a black hole of litigation.
The one thing that bugs me about this is that he did what he thought was best for his company. His job is ensuring the company's survival. Period. Ideals have a place and time, but ideals also do not put food on the table, pay the rent or mortgage, and do not ensure continued employment.
Now do I think he made the right choice? No, I think the idea of purchasing licenses from SCO was dead wrong. But I do NOT think this because of some idealistic idea I have about the SCO IP thing. I think it was wrong simply because so far, the legitimacy of SCO's IP claims is seriously questionable. Were I in that postition, I would NOT be paying money based on IP claims that are still in dispute.
That he did, is akin to me paying a license fee to Coca-Cola for use of the Pepsi formula. (assuming that Coke sued Pepsi claiming that Pepsi includes Coke's IP).
As I said, he did what he felt was in the best interests of his company, which is exactly what his is paid to do. I still think it was the wrong decision, BUT to fault him, and berate the company merely on an idealistic viewpoint is also equally wrong.
Its almost like people who refuse to buy a Honda because Honda is a Japanese car. Instead they spend money on a Ford (made with 80% foreign parts). They never stop to think that the Honda is built in Kentucky by American workers.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Then I decided that everybody makes mistakes and this CEO is a remarkably candid and honest person for publicly admitting his mistake.
THEN, I started reading the article, and came across this quote:
HELLO?!?!?! What kind of comment is that to make in an interview? "Well, we lose a lot of sites every month and this isn't any worse than usual". Hmm, interesting.THEN, I thought he'd redeemend himself with the next paragraph:
OK so that's a lot of churn, but it's still net growth. I can see his point, I guess.Of course, his next sentence was "We churn a lot of sites." What this guy needs is a PR consultant. I don't think going on record saying you have a lot of churn is the right way to "spin" things. Of course, the more important question is, why so much churn? It depends on their total numbers to see what kind of a percentage basis this is, but it seems disturbingly high in absolute number terms. It's something I'd consider before hosting my site there, anyway.
www.clarke.ca
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I for one welcome our regretful CEO overlords.
Which of the following people used the following argument to justify their actions:
"Gee, I'm sorry, I didn't know any better"
Executive officers of companies take no end of credit for their brilliance when their business does well(despite it being almost entirely out of their hands) but the second something bad happens, will say "shucks, it wasn't me" or "I dunno" or "oops". Folks- he should be fired by their board, or(gasp) take a pay cut, for the damage he's done by ignoring clearly obvious publicity problems the deal would generate.
It's interesting to note that in Japan, if a high-ranking company official makes a major blunder or is incompetent, they resign with a public apology(taking responsibility) or take a voluntary pay cut. American CEOs and execs can demonstrate no end of incompetence and take pay raises, huge stock deals...or get enormous golden parachutes. They commit massive fraud and get away with a fine that is barely 10% of the profits they made, or maybe a few weeks in some state-run all-inclusive country club.
Please help metamoderate.
This is a business man folks. This is business.
1. Pay up. Support the other side. Get the licenses.
2. Say you're sorry for doing so. Your money STILL supports the other side...you STILL have the licenses...but now you can get pity from this side.
Best of both worlds.
No, not gonna happen. Until those licenses are null and void, I'll never send ev1 a penny of my money. SCO claimed this was a million dollar deal. Even if it was only 10,000 you can bet Robert Marsh knew EXACTLY what he was doing. He's just trying to keep his customers after doing EXACTLY what he wanted to do.
If you pity this man after this "confession" then you're the one that deserves the pity. He's making a fool out of you twice.
It comes from the realization that by paying, you have encouraged the criminal to repeat this sort of behavior.
The best thing everyone can do is to totally ignore SCO's demands for money.
Disclosure - I spent 4 days in Houston in the Sheraton on Robert's dime, got to go to the Houston bowl and party in his box, tour EV1 and some other goodies. I've met and talked to Robert and personally I like the man so call me biased if you want.
Robert honestly thought he was doing a good thing, he hasn't went into details but basically SCO came knocking and when the dust settled it was cheaper to just pay them and let it be, than to fight them.
Robert's not afraid to fight if he has to, he recently won a judgement against everyone's (in the hosting industry anyway) least favorite litigious bastards (er bitch?). But I think he simply felt like buying the stupid licenses was cheapest and easiest.
Then I think he made his big mistake (not that buying them wasn't) and SCO basically either said "hey free advertising we'll just mention this in a press release, and people will see your url EVERYWHERE" OR they simply said "part of the agreement is we name names like it or not" I'm not sure which way it went, but allowing SCO to publicly state they bought a license was the big mistake.
No one knows for sure who might have quietly bought licenses so far, but letting SCO publicly display the fact you buy a license is definitely a big bad idea.
--- www.f-theocean.com
Classic craven executive behavior: when the chief exec of EV1Servers faces a puffed-up SCO, he caves. When he faces hate mail for caving, he caves to them. SCO can't revoke his BS license for whining about it, and haters can't do anything at all. This guy is a complete clown - I wouldn't trust him as accountable if anything ever happened to my site he was hosting.
--
make install -not war
1. Insist that his deal remained totally secret.
2. Refuse to deal with the extortionists.
3. Assuming he negotiated a better license agreement, insist that he would be free to publicise the text of that.
Just as businesses clearly have to pay off extortionists some times in order to survive, it may make business sense, but it is in no way "honorable".
Furthermore, it was clearly his intent to attract customers on the basis that he could offer safety from SCO's lawsuits: else why not insist on complete secrecy? Thus he hoped to benefit from SCO's FUD and should therefore be considered complicit. The only possible alternative explanation is that he reduced his own cost by allowing EV1's name to be publicized by SCO: once again, in this scenario, he is knowingly attempting to benefit from SCO's FUD.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I don't know if he saw that SCO would whore their name out like that. I think at the time he was concerned, probably got one of those "letters", inked the deal because it would be cheaper than a legal battle, and then got a public teabagging from SCO.
Basically SCO has humiliated one of it's new customers in public, which again is telling of the way they do business. And I'm sure that wasn't part of the bargain.
Don't pay, get sued. Pay and get pimped out as a public relations hooker for SCO's legitimacy campaign. Hmm, choices choices!
note: I've had dealings with EV1 through customers. They provide a pretty ok service for the cost I'd say. Just for reference.
-- The unsig...
"I certainly know a lot more today than I knew a month ago, in a lot of respects."
What he really meant to say was this, without the sarcasm...
Cecil: Goodness, I had no idea, for you see I have been on Mars for the last decade, in a cave, with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears.
4F14 - Brother From Another Series
Well, that word "absolution" contains another word that's equally important: "solution." What's he doing to try and actually solve this problem?
Mr. Marsh: A very good solution would be to (a) demand your money back for that high-priced toilet paper that SCO calls "IP licenses," and (b) sue them for fraud and/or extortion. If you want some background to show that what SCO is doing to you is indeed fraud and/or extortion, this is a good place to start.
Until then, no amount of whining you do about how you "regret" the deal will convince anyone to grant you absolution. That's not to say that absolution is impossible; you just have to do the right thing first.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
I've seen countless people saying 'why didn't he explore the issues' blah blah blah before signing on with SCO. What they neglect to consider is that as a for-profit business, the company's role is not to care about the issues, but decide which is going to cost more, signing the contract (and suffering the resulting backlash) or getting their asses sued so they can make a stand on principals. As they don't have IBM's warchest of cash and IP for cross-licensing deals I think he chose the right course of action.
Instead of a poorly informed CEO making a bad decision and in need of a PR guy, this looks to me like he made the right decision for the bottom line (no more churn than normal after the announcement) to the company and now he's paying lip-service to the user community so he can perhaps lower his already "normal" ratio of sites lost to sites gained.
All in all, looks like a win-win. Covered from the law suits and now looking like he agrees with the anti-SCO crowd.
Looks like he's got his cake and gets to eat it too.
I am writing to inform you of a potentially serious situation. I represent a company with a very large and well-funded legal department, hereafter referred to as "Your Worst Nightmare." YWN may or may not possess significant amounts of Intellectual Property ("IP"). Said "IP" may contain, but is not limited to, patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, methods, know-how, information, thoughts, and/or beliefs. It is YWN's strong, steadfast conviction that you personally, your company as a whole, all of your company's customers, and your entire board of directors and their families may or may not have willfully and deliberately committed acts in direct violation of our "IP rights". YWN has a fiduciary responsibility to protect any and all rights that it may or may not possess, and is therefore writing this letter to appraise you of the situation.
Despite the ironclad position based on overwhelming indisputable evidence that may have been presented in this letter, YWN is very reasonable. YWN believes that you represent an honest, American, patriotic company, not a bunch of communist hippies that want to steal YWN's "IP rights", completely contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America. In order to avoid a potentially ugly situation, which may or may not involve multiple lawsuits, damaging press releases, and unpleasant medical exams, LWN proposes the following solution. Please forward us a check for $1,000,000^H^H^H^H^H^H $250,000^H^H^H^H^H^H^H $10,000 as a token of your gull^H^H^H^H sincerity. Please identify yourself on the face of your check with your company name, and any "IP rights" you think you may be violating.
Thank you in advance.
A Faceless Lawyer in a Sea of Litigators
What I haven't seen is anything along these lines:
Sounds like a gamble, but a good way to nail the coffin of SCO if/when they lose; also a great way to send a message to anyone else that might try these SCO tactics.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Ok...we're not naive. Whether this deal was for $10,000 or 6 figures as SCO claimed, we realize it wasn't something done hastily and overnight. They thought this one out. However, this is also something I think they thought out:
1. Let SCO use you as their poster child. Any company that is illeducated, wants to use linux, but is afraid of SCO now comes right to your doorstep.
2. This WILL hit slashdot. Face it....you have a product for geeks. SCO is geek enemy #1. This is going to generate LOTS of traffic to your site....LOTS of geeks will be talking about your company.
3. A month later, after you've gotten your share of customers that are afraid of SCO, announce that you're sorry and that SCO is a bunch of bad people. You KNOW the story will hit slashdot.
Now what happens? The slashdot crowd starts feeling sorry for you....and all that advertising starts to work for your benefit. You've got the licenses and now you've got more geek advertising than any banner ad could provide.
Maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist, but man...this seems WAYYYYY too convenient.
"Though far more valuable would be folks who can spot trouble BEFORE you ink a deal."
Poor guy must've done his SCO searches on MSN.com....
And does SCO really care what EV1 says? SCO fucked 'em up the ass, got their jollies, left a present on the night stand, and has moved on to other FUD. As far as SCO is concerned, EV1 served their purpose, no suprise, EV1 feels dirty! And, I don't think SCO has ever actually planned to make money on the license business. Lastly, note that SCO stock is up today.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
On March 11, 2004, the NASA Records Officer notified Center Records Managers about a lawsuit filed by SCO Group, Inc, asserting the "enterprise" use of Linux (R) operating system violates SCO's intellectual property rights in Unix technology. If court rulings are favorable to the SCO, there may be subsequent claims against Government agencies.
Effective immediately, NASA is to preserve and prevent destruction of all records pertaining to the procurement and use of Linux (R) software per direction from the agency General Counsel and CIO. These records must be preserved until the NASA Headquarters, Office of General Counsel, lifts the destruction freeze.
We are asking each Directorate to review its technical and contract records and identify any that may be relevant to the subject litigation. A record is defined as papers, reports, photographs, or any documentation used to record the work of your office regardless of the physical form. Records can be created by your office and/or document an action, activity, or decision taken by your office. If records are discovered, you are requested to segregate them and immediately notify Ms. Patricia Southerland, the GSFC Records Manager, at extension 6-xxxx, or by email xxxxxx.
Silly!!
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No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
For example: why doesn't he release the details of the deal with SCO, if SCO has insinuated some details that are not true? Surely the secrecy clause works both ways!
Additionally, why doesn't Mr. Marsh donate, say, $1MM (the purported value of the deal, as per SCO) to OSDL? Call it a token of appreciation for the OSS community that has helped his business get to where it is today.
Words, by themselves, don't mean much Mr. Marsh when your deeds have done tangible damage. If I break a neighbors window, I will have to replace it; just saying "Gee, sorry!" doesn't help.
Until Mr. Marsh takes tangible steps to balance his mistake from March 1, his words are meaningless. The most likely explanation, IMHO, is that he's trying to douse the protests and just move on, with complete disregard for the ramifications of his deed.
I have rented from ev1 for quite some time. You could go to their website and SEE how many servers they had for rent. Usually, the total number available was 1 here, 4 there, 6 here, 2 there (of the different OS choices). Most of the time, there were ZERO available of at least half of the servers. As clients quit, more come available, etc.
Once the SCO story broke, EVERY type of server was available, and they quit publishing the number of servers available. My guess is they lost a few hundred clients, the "numbers available" became irrelevent and were dropped. It also made them look bad.... 12 servers available today, sign with SCO, 329 available after Slashdot reports on it...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!