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SCO Prides Itself on Inspiring FUD
ronaldb64 writes "According to a recent press release they are "...honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100. We pride ourselves in the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions designed by some of the most experienced and outstanding engineers in the industry," said Jeff Hunsaker, senior vice president and general manager, SCO's UNIX Division.
What is the reason for the SD Times nomination? "The company's legal assaults on IBM and Linux users dominated 2003's tech headlines and shook up the open-source community. No other IT topic inspires such fervent debate, fear, uncertainty and doubt.". I guess any press is good press these days for SCO. Congratulations..."
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
SCO's new restaurant
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
"SCO prides itself on..."
Soon will they say they've invented FUD and hold the IP rights to it?
Oh wait, that was IBM that started that...
do() || do_not();
They're not even bright enough to note what they're being "honored" for....
Reminds me of the bullies in Jr. High that you could insult with big words as long as your vocal inflection made it sound nice.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Evil criminal type: "I am honored to be named among the many influential individuals who comprise the Ten Most Wanted list down at the post office. I pride myself on the work I do to create nefarious plots and solutions designed to pry cash from my victims. Some of my schemes are among the most interesting solutions developed in the criminal world."
Like the Oscar.
How 'bout the Elmer?
If you post it, they will read.
Lindon, Utah; you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Trolling is a art,
Yes. It's a nice operating system you've got there. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
And perhaps we should thank bin Ladin for increasing America's national security. Cause I feel much safer now. And heck, he's made headlines more than SCO.
<insert witty linux comment here>
I think there is a bug in the web page. In Internet Explorer the frames render with bars as separators but in Mozilla Firefox the bars are replaced with balls. This isn't funny until you scroll down the end of the report to find unlike everyone else in the list Darl McBride only has one ball.
Omnis amans amens
Seriously, is SCO actually creating new products right now? (other than the product of lawsuits, $699 profits, FUD, scare, etc). Actual user/consumer/business products?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
That in the first 3 sentences it states the "SCO the owner of UNIX" but the most interesting fact is at the bottom of the artice -- "Source: The SCO Group"
A bunch of Tech Stuff
Although FUD needs to be constantly and consistently fought in corporations by knowledgable IT employees, FUD is a legitimate marketing technique. It ~works~. Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.
So, full marks for their marketing and communications strategy. Its distasteful and full of lies, but so far they've been effective at getting their message out, and have avoided any consequences (e.g. perjury; public backlash) to this date.
The real question, though, is whether they will be able to translate this notoreity into $. Can they execute a business plan that will translate into consistent streams of revenue? Given their poor execution so far (e.g. they have not strategy outside of lawyers) I think not. If they get out of this intact, or maybe with a blip of one time profit on their books, they should count themselves lucky!
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
The SD Times is intelligently embracing a controversy in order to attract attention and increase its brand value. Getting a story on Slashdot mean they hit the jackpot.
I doubt anyone at the site actually considers SCO to be a worthy company. Editors really should be more aware of this kind of manipulation.
... is where they spell your name right."
-- old showbiz saying
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Reminds me of SCO's spin on a VARBusiness article back in October. Here's SCO's version. Now check out the original article. SCO did indeed rate in the top four. Out of five.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
And what is up with that shirt Marc Fleury is wearing? OK, he's French, but still!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Microsoft, leading cause of IT-related suicides, announced today that it is, in fact, proud of the accusations of monopolistic practices
Quote from Mr.Gates
"Hell yeah, we've been using our power and influence illegally for quite some time now. I've wanted to admit it for such a long time, but the boys in Legal say its a BAD thing to admit the obvious. But now, thanks to SCO, we can admit to owning BOTH Park Ave. and Boardwalk, all the houses and hotels therein, and yes, we do charge $20 for a snickers from the minibar. Why? Because we can"
When I worked with SCO Open Server Unix, it was absolutely the WORST version of Unix I've ever worked with. Half the X-windows TCL/TK admin tools had major bugs. Most the utilities didn't work and I had to edit straight Unix files. I had to install it several times to get it working. UNIXWARE they bought from Novell, so they deserve no credit for that. An associate used to call SCO Open Server, SCO Open Sore. :)
...be on drugs?
Or do they only test the worker bees?
Woohoo! I got to slam SCO, Darl, and invoke Godwin in one post! Ahh, I'm done.
Maybe there should be a prize called 'SCO'.
Like an Oscar for FUD.
And the SCO of 2005 goes to......
Cool. Someone else using the Baghdad Bob playbook on public relations.
Anyone else ever notice how the heat-grading units for peppers are called Scoville Units?
In honor of this, I propose a scale for rating the FUD of companies & other groups/individuals based on SCO Units.
I can't think of where the scale would top out or even start, but that earlier story that got Linus to say he was a frontman for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus has to be worth something.
And besides, SCO probably won't be around for much longer once IBM steps on them. They might as well contribute to some great cause before they are just a footnote in that future book, The History of the Greatest Operating System That Ever Lived.
Haven't read an SCO press release in the last 2 years, eh? They all start that way. It's sort of like little kids playing "King of the Hill" or something... "I *AM* KING OF THE HILL! FEEL MY WRATH!" Or, maybe they think if they say it enough, people will believe it.
Now maybe IBM can sue SCO for using their business model!
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Bugs Bunny's nemesis
Although FUD needs to be constantly and consistently fought in corporations by knowledgable IT employees, FUD is a legitimate marketing technique. It ~works~. Few, if any, businessmen knew who SCO was 2 years ago, but now they have almost universal brand-name recognition.
So, full marks for their marketing and communications strategy.
Murder works. Someone competing for the affections of the same girl as you? Someone competing against you in the workplace a little too successfully? A competitor gobbling up too much marketshare that is rightfully yours?
Off the bastard. Kill 'em dead.
Murder is by far the most effective way of dealing with unwanted competition and conflict, particularly if you are reasonably clever about it (it is an ugly, dirty little secret of our 'justic' system that most murders go unsolved, and most murderers thus get away with their crime).
By your logic, murder is a legitimate tool of competition.
I beg to differ. No amount of success justifies, much less legitimizes, a despicable methodology.
FUD and disinformation are unethical and despicable in the extreme, and their use is not legitimate, no matter how successful they are.
The courts would agree. It wasn't so long ago that IBM got seriously slapped down by the courts for exactly that sort of illegitimate, successful behavior.
SCO, Darl, and their sponsors (Microsoft and Sun Microsystems) should face similiar sanctions for engaging in this illegitimate, and quite possibly illegal, behavior.
(And lest you think defamation and libel are legal, check again. It may be hard to win convictions, but that doesn't make the act any less illegal, or any less illigetimate, and FUD, by its very definition, is libelous).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Evil I can accept, but not knowing the difference between comprise and compose is unforgivable. They must be stopped!
...you say as you submit yet another SCO story to Slashdot.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
...but this just irks me.
"...honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100.
"Comprise" is not the word you want. That would be "constitute." See Strunk & White's The Elements of Style.
I have discovered a truly marvelous
and the damn stock went up. :0
...SCO is in the real business of technology these days, this is no surprise. Read with me now:
1. There is technology for technology's sake (open source, true innovation)
2. There is "technology" for business sake (lowest common denominator ripoffs, more focus on marketing than R&D, specific focus on profit)
3. Then there is SCO (sue, sue, sue, sue, sue... ad nauseum and "Here is our repackaged version of our crap OS with open source stuff")
Which technologies will still be around 50-100 years from now? Undoubtedly those that originate in group 1.
Un-news
In related news, Osama Bin Laden talks about his growing rivalry with Darl Mcbride for most hated man in America...
Um, "open source" -ne "Unix-based solutions".
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
That's OK, OptInRealBig will continue to bring great deals to those who want them. It should be a crime for service providers to deny the great offers we make to people who took their busy time to sign up for our lists.
Scott
For more than two decades, SCO has provided innovative UNIX solutions valued by customers for its reliability, stability and security.
I'm so sick of this. New SCO/Caldera != Old SCO/Tarantella/Santa Cruz. Why is it that the current SCO is able to keep giving the impression that they are a different company?
It is jargon
See this comment from yesterday under a different story, for financial analyst's view on SCO, and another press release.
...I think it's about time that the "word" FUD dies off. It's used way too often when someone's propagandizing and there's no fear, uncertainty, or doubt involved. Second, what's the practical difference between uncertainty and doubt? We need them because we couldn't use FU or FD? Why can't we just instill fear rather than spreading FUD? It's not butter or anything. Of course, if you're not really making people afraid, you can't instill fear. FUD's good for that, since with the uncertainty and doubt part(s) of it, you don't need to.
It seems to me we have a "word" which is used too often and doesn't really mean anything.
As for SCO, it seems that the list isn't necessarily a good thing to be on. Influential people of the 20th century include everyone from, oh, Mother Teresa to Hitler.
It's sort of like when Time magazine made Newt Gingrich their "Man of the Year". It certainly wasn't highlighting him as a great guy. It was more of a "here's a guy who's used his power and influence to screw things up for everyone!"
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
READ THIS multi-page tiff: IBM's reply
IBM roasts SCO for the lack of evidence and delay tactics. Practicaly asks the Judge for a contempt of court ruling.
Easy to read pdf version on TuxRocks IBM-148.pdf
If anything, history has shown that the marketing of technology to be at lease as important as innovation. There is at least one company I know that has been around for over 25 years that has consistantly riped off others innovations and focused on marketing, only to become a monopolistic power. At the same time, other compaines that focused soly on technology for technologies sake and not enough on buisness aspects have floundered despite their technical superiority.
I'm also not sure why you grouped open source with true innovation. Take a look at successful open source projects/ companies. How many of them are defining their market and how many are just trying to create open source versions of market leading closed source products?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Memorandum in opposition is now available. PDF here (my conversion).
Goodies.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Who remains inside of SCO/USL that was any good on the tech side of things? When USL was first created, a number of them elected to remain with Bell/Lucant/Avaya, but USL still had some good techies. Even over the last decade, USL would hire some that were pretty decent. But does any good techies remain? I find it hard to believe that even with this economy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As stated, the most egregious example of SCO's discovery misconduct is SCO's persistent refusal to identify with specificity the UNIX System V source code that forms the basis of its claims against IBM IBM served interrogatories seeking this basic information from SCO in June 2003. Yet, SCO has resisted providing such information for ten months now - even in the face of motions to compel and two court orders to provide full and detailed responses to IBM's interrogatories. In addition, SCO has repeatedly failed to produce documents responsive to IBM's requests in a timely manner, even after being ordered to do so by the Court.
It is these failures by SCO to respond properly to IBM's discovery requests that led to the discovery stay being imposed. Having resisted discovery since commencing this lawsuit, SCO cannot now properly ask that the scheduling order be extended to, in effect, accommodate its own delinquency.
Depends on how you measure it, really. I'd argue that you should measure SCOs by the reaction to FUD...
By this measure, SCO's FUD comes in at at least 100 SCOs. Microsoft, on the other hand, would typically come in somewhere between 60-90 SCOs (at least in my household).
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Groklaw has a story on the SD Times FUD Award, as well as some comments from Red Hat's new counsel regarding FUD activities as responses to the disruptive technologies of Open Source, and that Red Hat will defend against it in the future.
Also, IBM has just filed a memorandum opposing SCO's motion to extend the court schedule. It sounds boring, I know, but what it basically says is that there is no reason to extend the court date, because any delays in the schedule have been caused by SCO's own malfeasance, and IBM intends to ask for summary judgement on everything anyway.
Here are some of the choicer quotes:
A tiff of the full document can be found at Pacer's public SCO v. IBM page.
The PDF can be found at Frank Sorenson's sco.tuxrocks.com site.
Investor Relations
/PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- The SCO(R) Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today announced the company has been named to the 2004 SD Times 100. SCO was recognized for its influence in software development as owners of the UNIX Operating System.
3 53 27
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SCO Named to the SD Times 100
LINDON, Utah, May 17, 2004
"SCO is honored to be named among the many influential companies that comprise the SD Times 100. We pride ourselves in the work we do to create world renowned Unix-based solutions designed by some of the most experienced and outstanding engineers in the industry," said Jeff Hunsaker, senior vice president and general manager, SCO's UNIX Division.
This year's SD Times 100, published in the magazine's May 15, 2004 issue, includes a new category called "influencers" in which SCO was honored, alongside some of the top companies in the high tech industry today. Other categories include; Modeling, Components & Libraries, Test & Debug, Tools & Environments, Collaboration, Deployment Platforms, Embedded & Mobile, Database & Data Access, Integration & Middleware, Standards Bodies & Consortia.
For more than two decades, SCO has provided innovative UNIX solutions valued by customers for its reliability, stability and security. As a leading influencer in the high tech sector, SCO software has been installed on millions of servers worldwide and has licensed UNIX technology in major corporations throughout the world.
"Each year, the editors of BZ Media's SD Times 100 look for companies and influencers which set the technical and market leadership for the software development industry," said Alan Zeichick, editor-in-chief of SD Times. "When choosing the 2004 SD Times 100, we carefully considered each organization's offerings and reputation with developers, as well as the attention and conversation we've heard around the company and its products and technologies, as a sign of leadership within the industry."
About SCO
The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries to grow their businesses everyday. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of more than 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services, visit http://www.sco.com.
SCO, and the associated SCO logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of The SCO Group, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
SOURCE The SCO Group
http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1
I Doubt anyone will Fear them much longer, their future is Uncertain.
TallGreen CMS hosting
Just because it has a reputation doesn't mean it has a GOOD reputation. Of course the same goes for the FUD award.
I actually have, in my basement, an old version of SCO Xenix (5.0 I think?) built for the 80486.
Now I prefer Linux to Solaris, and I prefer Solaris to Windows some of the time. But SCO Xenix was THE WORST operating systm in its class as far as I am concerned. Many of the design decisions makes MS look *really, really good* at software design. And evidently reading the reviews of the more recent versions, it still seems to be that way...
OTOH, their documentation was really great (the only reason I keep it around). The only documentation I have ever seen that came close was the FreeBSD guide which came with my FreeBSD CD's. And the SCO material covered twice the material in half the pages while assuming that the user knew absolutely nothing.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP