SCO v. IBM: Case Closed?
Lawsuit is doomed, attorney says
By Jennifer deJong
March 15, 2007 —
(Page 1 of 6)
Its been a long four years of lawsuits, countersuits, motions for dismissal and judges refusals to grant them, but the case of SCO v. IBM isnt over yet. Or is it?
SCO has no future, said Tom Carey, an intellectual property attorney for Boston-based law firm Bromberg & Sunstein. The lawsuit is doomed.
Industry analyst Rob Enderle echoed those sentiments, saying he believes the company has no future beyond the outcome of the lawsuit.
The SCO Group sued IBM in March 2003 for US$1 billion, alleging that IBM took code from SCOs version of Unix, and, without authorization from SCO, contributed it to open source operating system Linux. The essential complaint that SCO has against IBMthat IBM misappropriated code in violation of its contract with SCOis a complete loser, said Carey. The IBM contract expressly permits IBM to develop competing products using the very personnel who have had a look at the Unix source code.
Compounding SCOs legal troubles is its weakening financial position. The company has an accumulated deficit of $250 million, noted Carey. Share prices have ranged from a 52-week low of 85 cents and a 52-week high of $5.23, and were trading at about $1 in late February.
If SCO loses the case, the most it can hope for is a four-man office to collect license fees on legacy Unix installations, Carey said. There will be no more R&D and no new products.
SD Times offered SCO the opportunity to respond to Careys comments by e-mail, but SCO did not reply. Nor did the company respond to a request for a phone interview.
INTENSE ANTAGONISM
In an effort to stem its financial losses, SCO launched new mobile product offerings last summer, including HipCheck, an application that lets IT managers monitor network problems from a cell phone.
In-Stat principal analyst Bill Hughes said that SCOs new mobile product offerings launched last summer are worth looking at, and that he does not believe the companys legal troubles will have a negative impact on potential buyers. He also described as unwarranted the ill will SCO has generated within the industry, noting the company has been the recipient of intense antagonism.
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