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SCO Stock Continues Downward Spiral
tobiasly writes "TechNewsWorld reports that three and a half years after SCO saw its stock price increase tenfold to US$20.50 following the filing of its lawsuit against IBM, it closed Tuesday at US$2.28 per share, or two cents less than where it was before the lawsuit. This follows a sustained slide fed by poor earnings results and courthouse reversals which, according to OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen, shows that 'Linux and open source software are bigger than any one company. Linux has won in the courts and is winning in the marketplace.'"
I'd say their only customers are those with existing SCO systems that have not been upgraded yet. It can be easier to just buy another SCO license than to migrate the entire thing. I'm sure nobody is actually doing all-new SCO installations anymore. Anyone with a current SCO system should definitely have a migration plan, because they will be stuck with an unsupported OS when SCO finally liquidates.
And reward the owners and leaders that got them into this mess? IBM should make sure they cannot get off their feet again, not back them up with money.
No, at this point IBM is being accused of many things by TSG and clearly wants either the accusations to be thrown out by the court or a trial to clear their name.
:-)
Sometimes reputation has to be publically defended.
Of course, there is the alternative theory, IBM lawyers like to play with their lunch before eating it
IBM cant buy any SCO stock. If they do, it looks like IBM is "giving in" (i.e. buying them out instead of fighting).
Plus, thats assuming that they could convince those who hold the levers at SCO to sell up (if the rumors are true and Microsoft etc are the ones who are really behind SCO and the lawsuit, they are going to want to keep fighting to do as much damage to linux as they can)
The SEC operates extremely slowly. It could be years before they get around to doing anything.
Also, they're quite busy and tend to ignore companies that are either small or dying, on the basis that a dying company is a problem which will resolve itself if ignored, and they have more important things to do.
What a poor way for the SEC to handle such situations. The specific problem, if any, is with the management, not the relevant company -- the problem won't correct itself when management join another company after its death, and they may simply repeat the strategy, perhaps more ambitiously, since it paid off the last time... this could just bring down further other companies which were in dire straights before.
The management does their investors an extreme disservice, with their misguided efforts; surely they could come up with a better way of building a profitable business than relying off-chance that they might be able to kill Linux.
Surely a company should not invest its future in the outcome of a single lawsuit, if the evidence in the clear evidence available in their favor is lacking, and the theory of how they are likely to successfully argue their case, and whether the likely recovery of damages will outweigh the risk, are doubtful.
If the management cashed in their millions, perhaps the rest of the time actually pursuing the lawsuit is a thin veil, a farce, specifically and secretly designed to protect the perception of management's legitimacy to regulatory agencies, etc.
The lawsuit and arguments leading up to it may have been a staged thing, but they couldn't back down without admitting either an act of incompetence, OR an act of manipulating the market for SCO stock.
Until such time as the SCO management actually produce a credible case, and good solid evidence to back it up, it would seem they perpetuate a farce.
It's worse than that.
The major client my company has which still runs SCO uses it on a server that must be certified by Auditors at enormous cost (It's a bank). The setup they have now has been in place for around 8 years and at the time they got it it cost 1/10 it's closest competitor.
They have bought replacement software + hardware anyway and are now doing internal validation (before sheling out a few million to the Auditors).
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
On an idealistic "free software" note: This is a battle for freedom, not against oppression. The objective is not to kill MS or Apple (that would benefit no-one), it's to get them to accept Free Software, and embrace and produce it themselves. When Free Software surpasses them and if they don't change, they will die, that's just the way it goes. But the idea behind Free Software is not to "kill" anyone, it's just to be better. A genuine victory would be for Free Software to just become "how it's done", and for market leaders to all embrace these techniques.
Victory is Free Software as the norm, not the killing of other companies. That's a hollow goal.
Don't forget that's IBM that is winning, linux is hitching a ride here.
If this was happening to a smaller company, maybe it wouldn't have the funds to defend itself and would be gone bankrupt by now.
The threat is still strong.
A smaller company sues a larger one. The larger company spends so much on lawyers that it drains the resources of the smaller company, crippling the company until they can't fight any more
Except that in THIS case it's the smaller company that's been dragging it's feet at EVERY step of the way. So IBM hasn't done "something like this".
I have no idea about this kind of thing. However, it could be argued that should SCO win the lawsuit, then their strategy will have been justified. If you accept that premise, then the SEC is obliged to wait until the case completes. The SEC does not have the right to take actions based on their expected outcome of a lawsuit. To do so would effectively be a summary judgement overriding the courts.
Additionally, even if the lawsuit should fail, it was public knowledge. The SEC might take the position that a sophisticated investor (which I think is their yardstick) would be expected to know that investing in a company on the basis of a single lawsuit against a large, well-reputed company is an extremely risky investment. It is not the SEC's job to stop people taking on risk, to stop idiots placing wild bets in the market place, or to decide when a stock is over-valued.
All that said, I would imagine that the conclusion of the lawsuit will provide a whole pile of information upon which it is possible to draw a conclusion as to what SCO's management was up to. They appear set to fail. The question is, will the court's conclusion suggest that they had no basis on which to start the lawsuit? If they actually had reason to start the lawsuit, but no real evidence to hope to win it, was it therefore a very risk undertaking? If so, the combination of a bad strategy (which was harmful to their main business) plus share dumping will leave them open to lawsuits and SEC investigations.