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IBM Subpoenas Several Companies in SCO Case
bl8n8r writes "IBM subpoenas are flying. Morgan Keegan, EV1, Oracle, Royce, CAI, Center7, Novell, Canopy, S2, are all asked to reveal details on all documents concerning any communications with or any meetings involving Microsoft regarding Unix, Linux, SCO and/or Canopy." Groklaw notes that even more subpoenas are likely on the way.
Because they're being sued by SCO and they're gathering evidence against them?
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/04/23/sco.inv estment.ap/index.html
CNN story
Jory
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) :
Subpoena \Sub*p[oe]"na\, n. [NL., fr. L. sub under + poena
punishment. See Pain.] (Law)
A writ commanding the attendance in court, as a witness, of
the person on whom it is served, under a penalty; the process
by which a defendant in equity is commanded to appear and
answer the plaintiff's bill. [Written also subpena.]
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good luck finding stock to short!
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
IANAL, but I think court sanctioned subpoenas pretty much overrule any sort of confidentiality agreement/contract. Of course, the information will not be made public and will be sealed by the court, but IBM's lawyers will still get to see it.
Maybe they're not going after Microsoft because IBM is the largest reseller of Microsoft software and the single largest customer of Microsoft licenses.
Why do you think Microsoft went through BayStar and the like? While they hate each other with passion, they are bed fellows.
An NDA doesn't mean jack when staring down the barrels of a subpoena. They'll be in contempt if they don't comply.
Microsoft because of a possible MS-SCO connection, and Novell because they're claiming that SCO only has a license to UNIX from Novell that can be yanked at any time, and Novell's yanking it, as they back Linux now (after all, what's SUSE now?)
You're exactly right, but it needs to go through the right process. A subpoena can be rejected by S2 due to the confidentiality agreements, and quite fairly so. So S2 ask the court for a protective order, which then basically absolves them of negligence in breaking a confidentiality agreement. They've asked for that protective order and from what's been said on groklaw that's just a matter of a little bureaucracy.
court: "S2, give us these documents"
S2: "but they're covered by a confidentiality agreement. we'll get our asses sued. give us a protective order and it's OK"
court: "ok we'll get one"
normal process, basically.
what's the case against MS?
So far, that Baystar, one of the major sources of financing for SCO, did so at the behest of Microsoft. (The other major source of funding is a Canadian bank acting for unnamed private parties.) And that, Mike Anderer, the consultant who is "S2" wrote a subsequently leaked memo discussing how SCO was obtaining >$80M in funding (mostly indirectly) from MS.
> IBM makes more money,
IBM's revenues are much larger (91B vs 36B) but the EBITDA (10.4 vs 11.7B) and net earnings (7.8B vs 7.4B) are pretty close.
> has more employees,
Making the same amount of money with more people is not good.
> and is a bigger company. Go check out the facts at some point...
Depends on your metric. Measured by market cap, MSFT (297B) is much bigger than IBM (155B).
> Making the same amount of money with more people is not good.
But diversity is. IBM has broken into the services market, and various other markets microsoft could only dream of.
I would much rather have my revenue derive of various small points than very very few HUGE ones.