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Investors Bailing On SCO Stock, SCOX Plummets
HailDorothy writes "SCO's stock price is plummeting in the aftermath of Judge Kimball's ruling that Novell owns the UNIX copyrights, as we discussed earlier. '[W]e will continue to explore our options with respect to how we move forward from here,' SCO said in a public statement issued in a futile attempt to calm investors. SCO's stock price has fallen 70 percent during trading today, reaching a 52-week low. It looks like the end is near for SCO, which still owes Novell 95 percent of the SVRX UNIX royalties it collected from Microsoft and Sun through the SCOsource program. As Judge Kimbell noted in his ruling, it's unlikely that Novell will ever be able to collect on those royalties."
The most surprising thing here to me is that this implies some share holders actually believed SCO had a case here.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
If I'm reading Google's finance page correctly, almost 6 million shares changed hands today.
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=scox
Stock cannot sell if someone isn't buying. Who's buying?
Now I know about "short" and "long". But that's more easily described as a bet where you bet the stock will go one way and someone else bets the stock will go the opposite way. I understand about people having to buy stock to cover a mistake in a short/long. But that's an awful lot of shares being purchased.
I don't believe that there were than many people betting that it would go up again. Not with the approximately $9 million dollars it would take to have that stock last Friday.
Who's buying the stock and why are they buying it?
I can understand everyone wanting to sell it. I don't understand anyone buying almost 6 millions shares of it today.
Unless it's another scan by SCO to buy stock options from their executives. Trying to empty the company's coffers before Novell gets its cut or IBM beats them.
As of April 30, 2007, SCO had $19.847 million in total assets (which includes no intangibles), and $12.654 million in total liabilities, according to the Reuters data
The ruling on the Microsoft/Sun royalties owed to Novell adds roughly $25 million to the liabilities, making SCO worth roughly -18 million dollars, book value.
The amazing thing is that having been found liable for slandering Novell's title, they're still doing it.
http://www.sco.com/company/profile.html
"SCO owns the core UNIX operating system"
Uh, no. How long do they get to keep saying things like this before they're up for contempt of court too?
You'll notice they won't even tell you which patents of theirs linux infringes now. SCO got bad PR instead of them and IBM got good PR for defending linux.
No, they won't tell, and they most likely never will unless they get in a SCO-like situation where their actual revenue stream is drying up fast and it's either sue-and-pray or just die quietly.
I believe this is the primary lesson MS learned from their SCO experiment: The implication of IP infringement is much more effective at scaring people away from Linux than actually trying to prove it. As long as the infringement is a non-specific threat with only a hint of reality behind it, it works on the basic fear-centers of the brains of IT management. As soon as it becomes something real, like a lawsuit, then it instead it invites the managers to use the analytic portions of their brains. FUD and fact checking don't go together.
The concept of FUD is really nothing new to Microsoft of course, but this was an actual test run of "can we scare more people away from Linux with an actual IP lawsuit instead of just claiming that it is unsafe?" and it turns out the answer is "no".
The enemies of Democracy are
Based on the misery that is in store for them personally, Darl, Yarro and the lawyers all have to figure out how to save their hides. They might be able to do that if they can point to any evidence that points at Microsoft. That would direct IBM's attention away from them and IBM might be grateful. Otherwise, they will probably lose all the ill-gotten gains they have accumulated so far.
I would rather have her hold on to my Wii system. That is all.
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
I'm just looking at this as a stock trading opportunity. Anything dropping like this just has to bounce!
See http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=SCOX for a list of major holders.
Mostly, it looks like large investment institutions hold the bulk of SCO shares. Probably these are part of "total market" indexes and mutual funds. Since SCOX is still listed, they would still be a component of such funds.
The best I can tell, the insiders are mostly gone. The largest holder of SCO seems to be Glenn J Krevlin. There are some articles out there linking him to some other bad smelling companies; the phrase "smoke & mirrors" seems common. SCO sounds right up his ally.
Don't get me wrong, these guys deserve everything that they get for their cheesy actions in the last several years against Linux. However, now, looking at their demise, I can't stop thinking how did they get there, when they were once "the rebels" against "the establishment" back in the day.
I started my career as a technical support engineer for SCO Xenix in the late 80s, back in the time where Larry Michaels was there. They had the vision and an excellent code base. I had customers running up to 16 Wyse terminals on a 286 system under Xenix running COBOL applications, and even more could be achieved with SCO UNIX on the 386...
I know this is just a nostalgic thought and that the SCO I'm referring to has nothing to do with its current incarnation. I hope this can be used as a lesson for Canonical and other very successful ventures that can really become the next best thing: don't become arrogant and forget your values and where you came from. Companies change, but at the end of the day, it's all about the people and how you contribute to make your and our lives better.