Slashdot Mirror
SCO Preps Appeals Against Novell and IBM
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like SCO will be emerging from the almost dead soon, with new owners and $100 million on board. SNCP is adjusting the business strategy, according to this report on TG Daily, SCO is saying goodbye to CEO Darl McBride and is also preparing to appeal the summary judgments in the cases against Novell and IBM. If you have thought the chapter was closed, think again. Those $100 million can go a long way (even if SCO has to pay 17% interest on it)."
It looks like SCO will be emerging from the almost dead soon, with new owners and ... is also preparing to appeal the summary judgments in the cases against Novell and IBM.
This time please use holy water and lawyers made of silver.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Doesn't the bankruptcy trustee have to approve the sale first? The article sounds like this is already a done deal.. Dang, I need to start reading Groklaw again.
They won't be emerging from the almost dead, and they won't have $100M, and it's not 17%
They're still almost dead - this deal doesn't change anything about the fact that they owe a ton of cash to Novell, and will soon owe more to IBM.
The $100M is really $5M, plus a LOAN of *up to* $100M.
And the loan's interest rate is 17% plus prime (so closer to 21%.)
This is like you claiming that MBNA invested $50,000 in you when you signed up for a new credit card.
First of all this is at least a few weeks old. Check Groklaw. Second they are not giving SCO $100 mil outright. They are giving $5 mil with an option to loan another $95 mil over 5 years.
In a way, it's kind of poetic that these trolls are going to get raped by a loan shark (SNCP) at 17% interest. 95 million times 17% times 5 years is 80.75 million dollars, not compounded. That's an ass raping if I ever heard of it. Plus, they're going to have to pay 37 million to Novell, if they lose their appeal. It feels like something much deeper and more sinister is going on here, and it stinks. I just can't put my finger on it yet.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
Who keeps giving/lending these clowns money?
Pay no attention to the largest proprietary software company in the world behind the curtain.
They don't have squat until the BK court approves it. Even then they only get 5 million and 95 million in flash cash. If the trustee tells them to put the money in escrow against potential judgments from IBM and Novell, that will flush this deal. This is all show but I haven't figured out who the audience is supposed to be. The BK court isn't going to be impressed.
I'm not sure what they're going to appeal. SCO dug themselves a really deep hole, an appeal is a long shot.
No one with a brain would loan SCO a nickel. It would take a cash cow like Microsoft to convince anyone to get in bed with SCO. Maybe that answers who the audience is supposed to be. Like there are serious players who think SCO's IP claims have merit. Ooooo, scary. If that's the case this is to business strategy what the Zune is to Apple.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Using this 21% loan to file appeals is a lot like using your credit card to buy lottery tickets.
They're that desperate, and I can live with that.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Serious answer: Apparently this is Saudi money.
However the jury is still out on weather this is another Microsoft thing like BayStar
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Whats-Behind-the-SCO-Buyout/ SJVN's oppinion incase you are interested
Make SELinux enforcing again!
Undead clown lawyers... I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight.
I don't care how slick the lawyer is, SCO had a summary judgment against them. Provided the judge in the case dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's those things are damn near impossible to successfully appeal. I'd put the odds against successful appeal at 20 to 1. More likely than not the appeals court will simply say, 'No' and that will be the final whimper of SCO.
We've determined that:
- They never ponied up the code that supposedly infringed, strongly suggesting that it doesn't exist.
- They didn't even have the right to the copyrights of the Unix code they claimed Linux infringed upon.
- They (probably fraudulently) collected license money for "protection" against the non-existent claims in #1 on the inelligible code in #2.
- They did it all while making themselves rich and the stockholders poor through pump-and-dump.
Shouldn't people like this be in jail?Put identity in the browser.
Just a FYI, this deal has not been approved. So all this "SCO is going to be saved" stuff, has no factual basis whatsoever. Bankruptcy court would have to approve of it, and that is not likely at all. So the slashdot article here = incorrect.
Not exactly. Anyone who wins a judgment vs. SCO will become an unsecured creditor. They don't "own" SCO if they win. The court can award money damages, it can't force SCO stockholders to sign over their shares or force SCO to print new ones. Besides, Novell is unlikely to accept SCO shares as payment (given the lack of underlying value).
I think the goal here is to get SNCP onboard as a creditor ahead of any judgements against SCO. That way, they can continue to run up the expenses and drag out the court actions. When the day of reckoning is finally here, SNCP will be a huge creditor. They will take quite a loss, even after chewing up what remains of SCO. I suspect SNCP will get reimbursed via the PIPE fairy or whoever was underwriting the deal with Baystar.
As a private company, SCO will be exempt from all kinds of shareholder disclosures, SEC regulations, etc. Very useful in pursuit of this strategy.
There is one factor that the SCO folks may not have considered: Their strategy sets a scary precedent. If it works, we might see the "scorched earth" defense become commonplace. We might even see individuals doing the same type of thing when faced with a liability suit. This would make a mockery of the judicial system. SCO has to lose, and lose big. Their financial co-conspirators need to be exposed and clobbered. Unless they get a royal smackdown from the court, this behavior will be validated and probably repeated by others in the future.