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SCO Shares Plunge, Canopy Management Change
bretberger writes "Shares in Utah's SCO Group went into a tailspin late Tuesday as news spread of both deepening losses and an apparent coup at the software company's corporate parent, the Canopy Group."
Lots of good news before XMas. Best christmas present if you ask me. No software patents in EU, Microsoft fined and SCO stock down. What more can one ask?
Is this really news, who here actually thought SCO was gonna win? really though..
MABASPLOOM!
Great time to buy! Remember kids, buy low, sell high!
Isn't that name kinda ominous? A canopy blocks out the sun, gets everybody under one thing and cuts you off from the primal forces. Perhaps something more honest, like maybe COBRA?
...is if the parent co, Canopy Group, and all of the corporate criminal scumbags in charge over there lose their shirts and their golden parachutes mid fall. Otherwise, it will be them who are laughing all the way to the bank, despite the validity of the linux community's claims of fraud. This current administration won't go after them. Given what they have been doing lately to fuckups, they would probably give Darl an award...
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
AH-HAH
</nelson>
Seriously, SCO should be in the OED under "schadenfreude". I love seeing this stuff!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Who wants to bet that before long Microsoft will march in as White Knight and have proxy control over SCO. Hell, it already controls it indirectly!
Umbrella Corporation?
... Colonel Mustard, in the boardroom, with a letter opener.
I've seen companies take a 35% hit based on bad news and return to previous prices in less than a week. Considering the apparent magnitude of the announcement and the ensuing PIDDLY 7.5% drop I'm going to wager on the stock price returning to its recent levels.
I'm placing a market open order for (virtual) shares of SCOX right now.
(This is not financial advice, I'd barely even consider it virtual financial advice.)
Now how are people going to get their license for Linux?!
Settle? Does anyone see IBM settling? Why would they when they will win.
12/07/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 10,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $45,870.00
12/07/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 6,100 Open Market Sale proceeds of $28,745.00
12/01/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 15,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $61,767.00
11/30/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 70,500 Open Market Sale proceeds of $273,550.00
11/24/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 60,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $216,181.50
11/22/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 37,500 Open Market Sale proceeds of $131,250.00
11/19/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 10,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $35,000.00
11/17/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 10,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $35,465.00
11/08/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 100,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $372,615.00
11/05/04 BAYSTAR CAPITAL II L P Beneficial Owner of more than 10% of a Class of Security 22,000 Open Market Sale proceeds of $80,900.00
I hope for only one thing :
That their (inevitable) demise receive AT LEAST AS MUCH publicity on public news channels / papers that their foolish lawsuits received. To inform the population that it was FUD. Or else they'll have (kinda) suceeded in inspiring a doubt in the minds of many concerning Linux legitimacy. No one on slashdot, obviously, but the common man who heard on news that SCO was suing IBM on UNIX/Linux for code thievery... maybe.
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
I was certain the, honorable and the trusted SCO Software would come out ahead of those socialist pirates known as Linux users. Who's with me?
So what, exactly, is the deal with Ms Didio? I could understand her possibly (giving her benefit of the doubt) originally siding with SCO as an analyst... but over time her constant support, constant praise, and general attempts at propaganda make it more than obvious she's got a heavy leash being held by someone over there.
Does she expect to retain any value as an "independant analyst" in the post-SCO market? It's all too common for analysts to be paid to support a product or company, but they're usually a little less blatant about it. Who would value her opinion, knowing that her opinion is for sale?
Though... I suspect (recently) that it's more Canopy holding her leash, than SCO, since she seems to choose Canopy over SCO when she has to (like in her recent comments - she still didn't say anything bad about them, but saved all her real praise for her theoretical overlords at Canopy).
Do not confuse "Freedom of Choice" with "Free Will".
Attorney David Boies of New York agreed to cap the overall cost of SCO's lawsuits to $31 million in return for a bigger piece - 33 percent, instead of 20 percent - of any settlements.
Dear David,
We ran out of money, but we will give you an even bigger slice of nothing.
Love,
Darl
SCO is a software company??? All this time I thought they were just a legal firm...just me?
You'll have that sometimes...
Check out the Didiot's comments:
"New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle."
Honestly, I don't think it matters how hard SCO get's pushed - if IBM doesn't wanna, then it ain't gonna happen... and IBM knows they're gonna win.
I just picture it as Peewee Herman in the ring with Mike Tyson - near the end of the 12th round, Tyson is untouched, and Peewee is a bleeding smudge on the canvas as his manager thinks "Hmm, maybe we should ask Tyson if he wants to call it a draw."
As seen here:
:)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SCOX&t=5y
SCO started the attack on Linux first (early 2003) when their stock was at the lowest point, and it paid off a bit - until now - and they are back where they started, except now everybody hates them
I'm playing the world's smallest violin for SCO.
I don't have time to learn a new villian.
-pyrrho
Shares in Utah's SCO Group went into a tailspin late Tuesday.
So what? The stock is higher now than it was when they started all this litigation in 2003.
That Mustard is a bit of a hatchet man. (walks into a sinking ship and throws so many people overboard that its starts floating.. then points that barely floating ship back in a direction that will assure the safety of whomever is left)
Couple that with the CFO's leaving and the REALLY piss poor financials that were released yesterday.. I reckon we're about to see the end of this whole saga.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
Shares in Utah's SCO Group went into a tailspin late Tuesday as news spread of both deepening losses and an apparent coup at the software company's corporate parent, the Canopy Group.
SCO shares closed at $4.51 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, down 33 cents, or 7 percent. Then came SCO's dismal earnings reports for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2004; within minutes shares plunged another 46 cents, or 10 percent, in after-hours trading, to $4.05.
SCO, embroiled in multibillion-dollar federal litigation against IBM and others over its purported rights to the Unix and Linux operating systems, more than quadrupled its fourth-quarter losses. For the quarter ending Oct. 31, SCO's loss sank to $6.5 million, or 37 cents a share; the company had lost $1.6 million, or 12 cents, in the same period last year.
Investors already were absorbing news, leaked out in bits and pieces earlier Tuesday, about an apparent weekend coup that ousted Ralph Yarro, Canopy's longtime president, chairman and chief executive, along with Chief Financial Officer Darcy Mott.
Secretaries at Canopy's Lindon headquarters confirmed that Yarro and Mott were "no longer with the company."
Callers to Canopy were told the company's new CEO is William Mustard, believed most recently to have been a managing director at Smooth Engine, a New York-based consulting firm that provides both interim and permanent executive replacements.
Mott's replacement had not yet been named. Questions regarding the ousters were referred directly to Mustard. He did not return several calls seeking comment.
Messages left at the home telephone numbers of Yarro and Mott - both former proteges of former Novell chief and networking tech guru Ray Noorda - also went unanswered; so did questions about how their departure from Canopy might affect SCO and its now 21-month-old battle with IBM, the world's largest computer company.
Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio called the ousters "a changing of the guard at Canopy. It is quite literally out with the old and in with the new.
"With the departure[s] . . . go the last vestiges of the Ray Noorda era. Yankee Group expects that other, equally significant changes will be in the offing for 2005," she said. "The fate of SCO is one of the big question marks. New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle."
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Of more immediate concern to investors, though, were SCO's finances. In addition to growing losses, the company's quarterly revenue also tumbled more than 50 percent - $10.1 million compared with $24.3 million a year ago. The decrease was primarily due to a precipitous slide in the company's SCOsource revenue - a paltry $120,000 compared with more than $10.3 million for 2003's fourth quarter.
For fiscal 2004, revenue was $42.8 million, down sharply from 2003's $79.25 million. Shareholders lost $16.2 million, or $1.07 per share this fiscal year, compared with $5.3 million, or 34 cents, the year before.
The SCOsource division manages the company's Unix intellectual property, and oversees SCO's largely unsuccessful attempts to sell licenses to Linux users under implied threat of copyright infringement lawsuits.
SCO CEO Darl McBride, anticipating victory in SCO's lawsuit against IBM, believes SCOSource revenue is destined to revive. The suit, awaiting rulings on motions for dismissal and evidentiary discovery, is not expected to come to trial until next fall.
"We're in a challenging business environment," he said during an earnings teleconference. "[But] we believe there is value in our Unix licensing business and we offer our customers . . . value they need to be made aware of."
McBride also pointed to a recent deal SCO made with its chief Linux litigator, attorney David Boies of New York. His law firm agreed to cap the overall cost of SCO's lawsuits to $31 million in return for a bigger piece - 33 percent, instead of 20 percent - of any settlements.
McBride said that p
This guy is way out there
The state of California putting an end to sneakwrap EULAs!
eric
Basically, this is a closely held thinly traded stock. Any delusions that free market rules prevail is a dream. This stock (according to the merry crew at Yahoo) is heavily painted.
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At close, the stock was around $4 which is down from recent values. Look at the volume though; nearly 400,000 shares. That's a lot for SCO. The daily average is a lot less. Finding a buyer for that much stock at that price seems like a major coup to me, not some kind of disaster.
The following is a quote from an article by Melanie Hollands. She has a very realistic view of SCO's stock. Last spring when the stock was sliding toward zero, she predicted support at $4. The quote was found at Groklaw but it is from elsewhere. The link I found was broken.
"The stock's run has also been propelled by fresh speculative activity and year-end positioning in the market, aided by its high volatility and limited trading volume. Some 'top 15' institutional holders of SCOX have actually been adding to their positions: Chesapeake Partners Management Co. Inc., Glenhill Capital, Barclay's Global Investors N.A., S&E Partners LP, and Citadel Investment Group LLC. There's probably also some jockeying around SCO's fiscal fourth quarter 2004, scheduled for release Dec. 21. . .
"Although BayStar's position in SCOX has been reduced to 1,746,453 shares (10 percent of outstanding), this one position accounts for a substantial 19.7 percent of its fund - so the portfolio and concentration risks are still high. For my part, I don't like to have any one position that constitutes more than 4 or 5 percent of my portfolio -- the market and concentration risks get too high. So, with a position that constitutes 19+ percent of a portfolio, whatever happens to the SCOX stock price dominates the risk profile and returns of that portfolio.
"Although JHC, which had been holding SCOX for well over a year, sold only 61,867 of its 545,764 shares, its activity is interesting -- in part because it's run by Jonathan Cohen, who has a business relationship with Royce Capital (SCOX's second-largest institutional shareholder), and in part because its position is a hefty concentration of its total portfolio - over 4.8 percent. Interestingly, Royce hasn't been one of the recent sellers. . .
"Technically speaking, SCOX looks like it's been bouncing off the bottom, but it's a pretty meaningless bounce. Why? Because the volume is not near levels that would indicate a strong move is going to follow through on the upside."
"The stock's run has also been propelled by fresh speculative activity and year-end positioning in the market, aided by its high volatility and limited trading volume. Some 'top 15' institutional holders of SCOX have actually been adding to their positions: Chesapeake Partners Management Co. Inc., Glenhill Capital, Barclay's Global Investors N.A., S&E Partners LP, and Citadel Investment Group LLC. There's probably also some jockeying around SCO's fiscal fourth quarter 2004, scheduled for release Dec. 21. . .
"Although BayStar's position in SCOX has been reduced to 1,746,453 shares (10 percent of outstanding), this one position accounts for a substantial 19.7 percent of its fund - so the portfolio and concentration risks are still high. For my part, I don't like to have any one position that constitutes more than 4 or 5 percent of my portfolio -- the market and concentration risks get too high. So, with a position that constitutes 19+ percent of a portfolio, whatever happens to the SCOX stock price dominates the risk profile and returns of that portfolio.
"Although JHC, which had been holding SCOX for well over a year, sold only 61,867 of its 545,764 shares, its activity is interesting -- in part because it's run by Jonathan Cohen, who has a business relationship with Royce Capital (SCOX's second-largest institutional shareholder), and in part because its position is a hefty concentration of its total portfolio - over 4.8 percent. Inte
Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio called the ousters "a changing of the guard at Canopy. It is quite literally out with the old and in with the new.
"With the departure[s] . . . go the last vestiges of the Ray Noorda era. Yankee Group expects that other, equally significant changes will be in the offing for 2005," she said. "The fate of SCO is one of the big question marks. New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle."
And how exactly are they going to settle? Seems to me that with IBM having a winning case, it will be SCO that'll be forced to pay out the money. I wager SCO'll fall faster than anyone expects.
$u(k 1t!!!!11!
Canopy's investment in Trolltech is absolutely tiny. As far as I am aware nothing that could possibly happen to Canopy would affect Trolltech at all.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Setting: The boss' office. The President and IT Director are meeting with the lead Sysadmin
Clueless IT Director to Sysadmin: So, if SCO folds will we renew our Linux license directly with Microsoft next year?
Long pause ...
Sysadmin begins to shake uncontrollably, breaks his pencil, quits job, and opens a book store in the Bahamas.
I, for one, welcome SCO's new overlords!.
To get laid???
"It's working! Our plan for World Domination is working! Soon all of the computers will be ours!" (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
SCO's going to self destruct before we get to see IBM pound them into dust.
It's been obvious that things were headed this way for awhile, but I still wanted the judges ruling.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
SCO was under $3 at the beginning of November. It's last trade today was at $4.17. Yea, stocks go up and down, but to call this a tailspin is a bit extreme. It's taken a couple of bigger drops in the last two months, but the rises have been even larger. Hey, I hate SCO too, but reporting a relatively small dip in the stock as a tailspin is an overstatement based only on bias against them.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Naturally, the truth is somewhere in between. This is bad news for SCO's strategies. That does not mean McBride won't be able to convince his minders to hold the course and continue with litigation. Strictly speaking, at this moment, they're still convinced. Neverhteless, it's obviously a bumpy road ahead for them.
So, don't throw a victory party yet, but I think we're all entitled to spend a few minutes smirking.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
""The fate of SCO is one of the big question marks. New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle."
This remark just made my day. Imagine SCO trying to settle, being pressured by it's parent company, sitting with IBM attourneys, trying to 'reach out' to IBM to make some sort of agreement. I figure they'll eventually both agree that SCO has wasted all of their time and money on something that is going to eventually cost it's upper management their careers, and hopefully their freedom (but I doubt they'll realize that quite yet.)
and this:
"We're in a challenging business environment," he said during an earnings teleconference. "[But] we believe there is value in our Unix licensing business and we offer our customers . . . value they need to be made aware of."
It's straight out of The Godfather. Way to tell it, Darl!
Novell will be the one to come in and snatch up SCOX.
Novell is making Linux the centerpiece of its technology strategy, so it has something to loose.
Ending this thing once and for all would endear the Linux community to Novell, so it has something to gain.
It also has $475M earmarked for acquisitions.
Novell has a history with SCO/Canopy. Ray Noorda was the chairman at Novell before he started Caldera. Darcy Mott was Novell's Treasurer, and R. Duff Thompson was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. Even Darl McBride came through Novell.
SCOX has a $79M market cap. For this small portion of their acquisition warchest, all this goes away and they get real linux street cred. Their marketing department should be lobbying hardest for this one.
When they're done with that they'll buy UNIX(TM) from The Open Group and geeks will write songs about them.
Only if they want to crush Redhat, that is.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If the share certs are printed on soft paper, preferably scented, I'll take a few rolls.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I know you're kidding but...
The Santa Cruz Operation actually started out as a pretty cool company with a great coporate culture here in Santa Cruz, California. I knew a lot of the engineers and I was even part of their High-Tech Corporate Bowling League, which was a joke but kind of spooky when you look back at it. At some point in the mid-1990's the executives started taking the company in questionable directions. Every year the staff puts on the SCO follies. One year they did a parody of A Christmas Carole in which the CEO of SCO saw a vision of the future if he continued in his evil ways. Then there were a series of mergers and renamings that I didn't really follow. And there they are now.
Does anyone else notice a disturbing similarity in name to the Umbrella Corporation?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Hold your mouse over the main graphic SCO Partner Webinars and it says: "Click to learn more about the latest Weinars"
You don't get street cred for rewarding extortion. Look at where SCOX was before they pulled this BS. About a buck a share. And SCOX has diluted shareholder value (in other words, printed and sold more stock) since then. Let's see: option 1. Pay more than 4x the original value of the company for an extortion threat or 2. let SCOX die a slow, painful and public death for being idiots. Anyone thinking of getting good PR by preventing this company from publicly bleeding to death from its self inflicted gut-shot is stupid. Paying off extortionists is *always* bad PR.
-Blaine
Then there were a series of mergers and renamings that I didn't really follow. And there they are now.
They sold their Unix licensing business (which they had bought from Novell) and their name to Caldera. Caldera changed it's name to SCO, and (old) SCO changed their name to Tarentella.
So, that's not them that are there now.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Scox isn't only suing, scox is being sued *big time* by IBM, and by redhat. If you buy scox, you buy those lawsuits against scox.
Scox has absolutely nothing of any value. No IP, no worthwhile products, nothing. According to scox, by the end of January scox will have $7MM in cash - less than $0.50/share.
Scox is nothing but a penny-stock scam. The idea of a legitimate company buying scox is absurd.
Bear in mind that the weasels at the top will loot the burning hulk and golden parachute to new jobs with their friends and relatives, while the actual working stiffs at SCO are the ones getting "reorganised" out of the door with nothing to show for their work, some of which will have been performed before SCO went Dark Side.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.