SCO To Invest in LinuxMall

Jason Perlow noted a story that popped up at ZD Net talking about a new investor at LinuxMall. Sco has entered the Linux World with an investment in the web store. Its interesting to note that they talk about doing this as publicity.

Comments

so what?

[Suydam]

I'm no longer impressed with the various companies that invest in Linux. Before you call this "flamebait" listen to why.

The Good Old Days: The first few companies to invest in Linux (IBM, Intel, etc.) did so for 2 reasons. 1) Money. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't going to make them some money. 2) Interest/Excitement. I truly believe that a year or so ago when they were giving money to RedHat, these large corporations saw something exciting in Linux. They wanted to be a part of it (for reason #1) and they thought that it might be a good way to expand their reach.

New World Order: Nowadays, companies like SCO and Sun just invest in Linux (or open source parts of their software) out of mere survival. THey're afraid that if they don't hitch themselves to the rising star that is Linux, they'll just go out of business.

I"m not saying I resent their investment,and I'm not saying it's a bad idea. But I AM saying that it's no longer impressive or newsworthy.

SCO's Linux strategy

[Ledge Kindred]

Anyone else getting more and more curious over what exactly SCO's Linux "strategy" is? I mean, one the one hand, they seem to take lots of opportunities to bad-mouth it to the public in general and their customers in particular, then about-face and apologise that they "didn't mean it like that." They'll make statements that they don't see a future in Linux and then turn around and invest in Linux-based companies.

I'm starting to wonder if SCO might be more of a "threat" to Linux than Sun. I really don't like Sun's attitude towards Linux and I know they're scared of it on the low end. (Not the E10K sized servers, but the Ultra 5, Ultra 10, and that range.) Sun seems to be doing a lot to sidetrack, derail, and otherwise just sort of take whatever momentum they can from the growing popularity of Linux with stuff like their SCSL and their so-called "Open Sourcing" of Solaris and the purchase and "release of source code" for Star Office.

However, I'm starting to believe that SCO might actually be taking a more discrete approach to derailing Linux since it competes directly on exactly the same platform and in the same market.

Perhaps SCO will get itself entrenched in several of the larger Linux companies, then in a few months or a few years, make some sort of announcement to the effect, "Well, we tried this Linux thing by investing in all these Linux companies, but, as the world's leading supplier of UNIX operating systems for the PC platform, we feel qualified in stating unequivocably that 'Linux isn't working.' Everyone go home and buy SCO from now on."

Not that I think it would have a whole lot of effect, but it would probably shake things up at least.

In any case, SCO is starting to worry and confuse me.

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