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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.
How long has it been since we have seen any progress in this case? Finally IBM has stood up and started getting real evidence.
Normally I have no favoritisms towards corporations, but let's hope IBM crushes SCO once and for all with this move.
invented litigating you out of business. SCO kicked up enough dust to raise their stock price temporarily but several events have signalled that SCO is headed fast to their inevitable end.....
1. Plunging stock price
2. The Baystar admissions
If you are thinking of buying SCO stock, do it to short it. It only goes down from here. See ya in hell Darl.
IBM is the defendant, remember?
Once IBM demonstrates how you get screwed by suing them for crap, maybe some of this stuff will settle down.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
SCO has had this coming for a long time, but its sad that the 2 thing I hate (Laywers and Patents) are going to bring them down.
This is kind of like seeing the school bully being hit by a bus - you are internally elated, but its not a pretty sight and you feel pretty sick afterwards.
Oh, well - as long SCO gets taken out, that's all that matters
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
And exactly how much mental effort does it take to piss and moan?
The thing is, last time I checked, IBM had never stopped development of new software and products. They have never stopped creating and selling innovative technology. A legal department is necessary for any large business. However, it only beceomes a problem when you are spending a disproportionate amount of employee time and revenue on legal proceedings. Anyone who has been following the SCO case knows that, based on the amount of information they've put out regarding their products vs. the amount they've put out regarding their legal case, they're clearly in the latter category. Same goes for their public financial filings. These elements clearly point to a company in its death throes wanting desperately to get bought out. Nothing about IBM's behavior indicates that they are in similar straits.
it's a good thing....I think it's to prove that there's something foul in the air (and no, CowboyNeal didn't have a burrito); aka Microsoft is using SCO to further it's anti-competitive practices, which can in turn be used against SCO.
I don't think companies that are being sued or threatened to be sued by SCO would say no to IBM's requests, as it is in their interests to help the one who has the bigger army of lawyers. Basically, the subpoenas are a legal formality; in case there's a non-disclosure agreement (a subpoena is a legal way of taking a peek without breaking that NDA), so the companies don't get sued by SCO/Microsoft for disclosing the agreement.
Fight fire with fire....this case, lawyers with lawyers. The only issue is that since SCO seem to have a secret ally/live-line (Micro$oft), hence IBM's move to possibly expose the foulplay by Microsoft, which will get M$ in hot water with the anti-trust settlements.
...I think IBM is looking to not only crush SCO (that they already know they'll do), but now they're trying to find leads suggesting this is a smear campaign.
While I doubt they're going to find condemning evidence, I don't think it'd take much to open another antitrust case against Microsoft. Along with the recent EU findings, I don't think they'd like that at all.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
SCO is basically a puppet for interests that can't be seen as directly attacking the Linux business. Smashing SCO would not be a significant discouragement to those interests. They'll just find another sock puppet. IBM is just following the money. Dumb bulls charge the cape (SCO). Smart bulls go immediately for the matador.
> and in the end good always overcomes evil :)
This is because the winners wrote the history
Well, McBride (McBird? :) had a fucking weak case, but what's the case against MS? Evidence for Anti-trust suit no. 2? IBM better hope first that the Democrats win in November if they want to make that kick on MS's butt hurt.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I think they see SCO's case is about to dry up and blow away and they want to get as much out of this as they can before that happens (if they are unsuccessful at convincing the judge to not dismiss the case at SCO's request (which I believe is coming)). I believe IBM wants to keep this case going so they can get a judgement in their favor, not simply a dismissal but an actual judgement. I think they believe MS is involved and they're seeking evidence to support that belief. If they can prove that MS paid SCO to litigate Linux then IBM will have an extremely strong set of feet to stand on when they oppose dimissing the case. That's what I believe is happening.
Except Microsoft ISN'T the "world's #1 IT superpower". Where do you get this idea from?
IBM makes more money, has more employees, and is a bigger company. Go check out the facts at some point...
why would SCO go throught the trouble of litigating a case that they, could not solve?
It seems to me that, that is a question that I would ask if I were the judge in this case
I could easily believe at this point that IBM is simply trying to show why SCO hasn't been able to produce any viable evedence. It's a shot at thier legs, trying to take their case out from under them
once more into the breach
True enough, but I'm not talking about just money and staff here. I'm talking about influence and ideology here. IBM may still be bigger in terms of revenue and overall staff, but it is quite clear that Microsoft has completely replaced IBM as the #1 influential IT company. Microsoft owns Windows, which is the world's most popular operating system. Everyone who knows more than the bare basics about computers knows about Microsoft. For programmers these days, Microsoft calls the shots. They write the operating systems, the APIs, the works. Allright, so there are other operating systems, but which one of those does IBM have? OS/X, which no one uses. The days when IBM was synonymous with personal computers are long, long gone.
Do you get my drift?
They are doing this to probably scare Microsoft out of ever trying to thwart Linux and Linux development again.
I think the correction would be "They are doing this to scare Microsoft out of ever fucking with IBM again." From what little business studying I've done, I'd say that they're only looking out for their own interests. Red Hat on the other hand, are looking out for the GPL because their stuff is bound under its terms.i would not say the most popular but most used (not same to me)
i think it is hated by almost everyone for almost everything
but they still use it
some for the games, some for the applications, some for the ease of use, some because they know nothing else, some because they have to, some for hacking fun
hey and there are even people which like it
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
Windows success hinged soley on Bill Gates deciding not to take orders from IBM. They were and will again be if allowed, twice the monopolist nazi that Microsoft is.
I'm not a lawyer, but with the exception of being a bad thing, what legal difference does it make if Microsoft did finance the whole SCO v Linux deal? Is that specifically covered in monopoly law? Otherwise, it seems to me like a perfectly good thing to do for your stockholders. People buy patents for IP protection (and settle exisiting suits) all the time. What would be different here? I can't see how this could be consider abusing your market position. Yes, I know everyone is against Microsoft - but what the legal behind this being wrong?
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
The fact is that if IBM went away tommorow, it would be tragic. Life would go on, but it would be tragic never the less.
:-)
If Microsoft went away, it would be disastrous. I don't like Microsoft more than the next guy on Slashdot, and *WISH* they'd go away, but at this particular juncture in time, Microsoft calls the shots.
There are replacements in line for anything IBM makes. The chips that IBM makes could easily be outsourced to Motorolla -- not as efficiently, and not quite as fast, but it could happen. Microsoft? If they were fucked up seriously, they could throw their heft around and *RUIN* the computer markets across the world. More than likely, gov'ts would have to come in and take over the ruins and run it as badly as Iraq is being run by an outside source, just make certain a global IT collapse doesn't happen.
Microsoft *IS* the worlds #1 superpower wether you like it or not. Most of Europe and Africa and Asia and Central and South America and 2 out 3 three north american countries hate the US, but that also doesn't mean its not the #1 superpower across the world (and regardless of how hated we are, I'm glad I live here than anywhere else in the world
Since it's fashionable to quote Sun Tzu and because it's applicable here, I'll have a few shots at it:
"Let your plans be dark and as impenetratable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
"All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign incapacity; when active, inactivity."
"Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible. Thus he is a matter of his enemy's fate."
And of course, the greatest:
"What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated. Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
Subpoena the "friendly" guys like Novel/Oracle etc to get a better idea of specifically what to subpoena from Microsoft in round 2...
Influence and ideology with home users and desktops perhaps.
Everything else uses M$ as a last resort and that includes Data centres, the mobile market, the Internet and many other areas such as rtos etc.
But you probably haven't heard of any of these.
rgds
ps IBM makes more profit than M$'s entire revenue so that makes them rather small beer really.
Revolutionary technical change destabilises monopolies. It is, after all, what brought IBM down in the end. All monopolies seek to stifle and hold back technical development - IBM did so in the 1970's in just the same way Microsoft does now. They were not 'cool evil', they were just another greedy parasite, but, unlike Microsoft, a fearsomely efficient greedy parasite. IBM as a monopolist was far more damaging to our industry than Microsoft is now. You don't want them, or anyone else, back in that position. Seriously.
This is not an attack on IBM as presently constituted. Today they are pretty good citizens, as corporations go. But power corrupts, and monopoly power corrupts absolutely.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
The thing is when people are playing this kind of corporate mind games, what they say doesn't tell you what they're thinking. It tells you what they want the other party to think they're thinking, and that's not the same thing at all. Or else it's a diversionary move, or a double bluff, or a smoke screen, or...
White men may speak with forked tongues, but the tongues of corporate lawyers are n-ary for large values of N.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
WTF? OS/X?
OS/2 sure (which I think they've dropped anyway; AIX is still supported though), but not Apple's OSX. Let's keep our shit straight.
I don't see it that way at all. If MS just went away it wouldn't be a disaster. OSX and Linux would pick up the slack and perhaps more hardware vendors would support Linux and include drivers. This would solve the biggest problem with Linux. It may be more difficult for some people but it certainly has the ability to replace the functions of Windows.
Time makes more converts than reason
If IBM collapsed, who would support its mainframes?
It is good advice, the best advice and the one piece of advice you should always take. DON'T SAY A THING. Let the lawyers talk. They are trained for it and if they are any good they will say the absolute minimum as well.
We have two recent and excellent examples of people who didn't take this bit of advice. Martha Stewart. They didn't get her on her crimes but got her because she didn't keep her mouth shut and lied to cops. A big nono.
The other is of course Darl "Leghorn" McBride himself. Baystar is reclaiming their investment because Darl just can't keep his mouth shut. Baystar is not against the lawsuit, they love the lawsuit, they just want it to be fought out in the courts where there is a change of SCO winning (or at least they like the odds on it) rather then being fought out in the streets and press where SCO is only loosing.
So wishing for IBM to make public statements is like wishing for the CIA to have press annoucements about the deployments of secret agents. Ain't gonna happen.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think the issue is with investment portfolios. If Bill Gates suddenly said "Microsoft is hereby disbanded! Good bye!" then economies everywhere would TANK like no other.
Remember Enron? Imagine if Microsoft suddenly was the next Enron - yikes.
-ZOD-
People are starting to question how much of the $90B that MS has in the bank isn't allocated to others thanks to some funny accounting on the stock options. MS might just turn into a much bigger Enron.
Um, sorry I don't think so. Microsoft could never run the massive datacenters that IBM hardware and software does. Sure, dinky little desktops would be screwed but in the grand scheme of things, who cares? I don't know of too many large (talking fortune 100 here) companies that rely on Microsoft for mission critical business functions, nearly ALL rely on heavily on IBM in some way. And Microsoft would be a hell of a lot easier to replace.
Taking away IBM mainframes ALONE would have a much more massive effect than taking away Microsoft.
Finkployd
Sorry, you got it wrong there. Take away IBM and all it does, all of a sudden no more datacenter. This means no government, no police, no utility, no big business (bank, insurance, etc). Ouch.
Take away Microsoft and all it does, it can be replaced overnight, on the same hardware. Maybe you would need to replace your mouse.