Chapter 11, in Which SCO Finally Gets What It Deserves
by John Paczkowski
Posted on September 17, 2007 at 12:01 AM PT
Wired News: So how’s business been since this ruling?
Darl McBride: This has zero to do with our open-server business. That has nothing to do with these fights. That’s 70% of our revenue. And finally, it has nothing to do with our new mobility products we are working on. All of our product business is really unaffected by this ruling, other than the noises in our marketplaces.
–Wired News interview with Darl McBride, CEO and president of SCO Group, Sept. 10
ComputerWorld: Can SCO survive even if it ultimately loses the legal fights?
Darl McBride: I think it’s one of the more exciting times for this company. There’s a story my general counsel shared with me. By coming out right now and saying this is an exciting time, it’s like the boxer who has come out of the ring after getting all beaten up, and he comes over to his trainer and says, ‘The guy didn’t touch me.’ And the trainer says, ‘Then you better keep your eye on the ref, because somebody’s beating the living hell out of you.’ “
–ComputerWorld interview with Darl McBride, CEO and president of SCO Group, Sept. 6
When a company begins characterizing its assets as merely “those remaining,” as the SCO Group did earlier this year, bankruptcy is an inevitability. So it comes as little surprise to learn that the company’s hard-fought, but ultimately ludicrous, four-year legal campaign against Linux has ended in a Chapter 11 filing. Seems using litigation as a profit center to compensate for market losses isn’t such a grand idea after all.
“The Board of Directors of the SCO Group have unanimously determined that Chapter 11 reorganization is in the best long-term interest of SCO and its subsidiaries, as well as its customers, shareholders and employees,” the company said in a statement, adding that it has filed a petition for reorganization in addition to the Chapter 11 filing. SCO said the filings will help ensure that it “will not have any interruption in maintaining and honoring all of its commitments to its customers” and will allow it to pay its vendors.
The reorganization, it claims, “ensures business as usual.”
It’s worth noting, however, that the preceding is a “forward-looking statement.” And as we all know, those often involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated …
(Darl McBride image courtesy Bill Stearns)
