SCO Blames Linux For Bankruptcy Filing

Stony Stevenson writes "SCO Group CEO Darl McBride is now claiming that competition from Linux was behind the company's filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 'In a court filing in support of SCO's bankruptcy petition, McBride noted that SCO's sales of Unix-based products "have been declining over the past several years." The slump, McBride said, "has been primarily attributable to significant competition from alternative operating systems, including Linux." McBride listed IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems as distributors of Linux or other software that is "aggressively taking market share away from Unix.""

Comments

Caldera to SCO: Backing the wrong source

[Kelson]

Okay, I'll grant that competition from Linux distributors probably has taken business away from their Unix offerings. (Not that there's a problem with that, it's just the way markets work.) Of course, I'm sure their "we'll sue our customers!" antics didn't help, as the distributors behind such Unix varieties as Solaris, AIX, HP-UX etc. don't seem to be in quite such dire straits.

But let's not forget that a few years back, this SCO was known as Caldera. They were a Linux distributor. They were a founding partner in UnitedLinux. Then they bought Unix -- well, they bought something -- and changed their name to sound like the old SCO (Santa Cruz Operation), and refocused their business on Unix and lawsuits.

Anyone want to bet that if they'd stuck with Caldera Linux as their primary business, they'd be doing a lot better today?

To pull out an old analogy, it's like they started out as an automobile company, and then decided to switch to the buggy-whip business -- and now they're blaming the automobile companies for their business failures.

Re:Caldera to SCO: Backing the wrong source

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know that if they'd stuck with the Caldera name and business model that they would have succeeded. After all, how much space is there really for commercial support in the Linux space. Maybe they'd have succeeded, maybe not - but their legal antics and operatic press releases made them look like maniacs. And that is entirely their own fault.

Re:Caldera to SCO: Backing the wrong source

[Monchanger]

As has been mentioned over and over, the SCO business model of recent seems less about product development and more about legal + accounting maneuvering.

The SCO strategy has been fairly consistent: call themselves as a victim and look for someone to pity them. Fortunately, few bought the act, and most have recognized the cheap trick for what it is. Hopefully, this new tantrum won't yield better results for them.

McBride, there's no crying in business.

Translation for those who don't know...

[Anonymous Coward]

corporate cop-out speak:

McBride listed IBM, Red Hat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems as distributors of Linux or other software that is "aggressively taking market share away from Unix."


We would like to blame other entities for our inability to make a quality product that can compete in a competative marketplace. Simple put they are responsible for our incompetance.

So, let me get this straight....

[downix]

You dropped your Linux support, now you're complaining that Linux is beating you? Would that not be akin to trading your ticket from a steam transport for a luxury suite on the Titanic?

Re:Tough noogies

[mhall119]

And "we got outcompeted by X, Y and Z" is a pretty damn common reason. Sure sounds better than "We abandoned product X to sell product Y. Then other companies proved that selling product X was more profitable than selling product Y. We then spent a whole bunch of money suing those companies for selling product X and our own customers for using product X without paying us for our product Y, only to be told we didn't actually own product Y, and owed ass-loads of money to Company Z."

Stop complaining!

[mce]

Indeed. And what's wrong with that? They filed for chapter 11, so now they naturally have to explain why. Competition that they cannot beat is the reason. The real one. What's wrong with little Darl saying that, other than that it probably is the first accurate business related statement coming out of his mouth in years and that he should have said it a long time ago?

I truely don't understand why you guys are screaming so much about this one. What McBride said is true amd he has to say it: Linux is the thing that ruined their business. It was doing that back in 2003 already. The fact that SCO used the dirty method they did to try to escape from the inevitable, does not change the basic facts. Get over it. You should all be happy, for $YOUR_DEITY_HERE's sake! So stop wasting time on such blahblah and get back to work, making Linux even better. SCO is history.

Re:Tough noogies

[gowen]

Oh, I agree. Bankruptcy filings get written by the soon-to-be-outgoing board. Unsuprisingly, they rarely say "This company folded because the outgoing board is almost completely incompetent and abandoned its core business in order to give all the company's assets to its lawyers."

Funny, that.