Summary: Novell's allegedly imminent announcement of a sale is debated and SCO is meanwhile raising funds by selling virtual (invisible) assets

NOVELL is rumoured to be weeks ahead of formally announcing its splitting and sale [1, 2, 3, 4]. Nobody knows for sure what this kind of thing may mean to the SCO trial, especially since no buyer was actually named.

Red Hat's Jan Wildeboer describes his "Weird nightmares" where "NOVL gets split up, VMWare takes SUSE and SCO buys the UNIX (c) to continue its "fight"..."

Carlo Piana responds to this by saying "...or ORCL buys Suse and both SCO and UNIX(c) go to MSFT (oh, wait a minute, isn't SCO already MSFT's)? :-P"

Joe Young foolishly passes forth the suggestion that Red Hat may acquire Novell. It also mentions the following:

IBM (NYSE: IBM) was not mentioned in this publication, but if it was or were to be, Jefferies sees potential headline risk for Red Hat, since IBM has been the key OEN and development partner of Red Hat for many years. Should IBM be named or publish intention to purchase SuSE, the financial impact on Red Hat could total ~$60M annually.

gnufreex adds "about Red Hat buying SuSE... they probably won't. I just don't know what could happen if VMware get it. They want to kill Red Hat and they might bundle free Linux support with virtualization... and everybody uses some VMware virualization. It might hurt Red Hat."

IBM supported Novell's buying of S.u.S.E., which is used a lot in mainframes, "at which point," explains The Mad Hatter, "you have to wonder if IBM might not get involved. I can't see that having VMware in control of SUSE would be good for IBM."

As we explained yesterday, former Microsoft executives run VMware.

Here are this week's stories that we found about schools dumping Novell because of Microsoft:

i. Chesapeake School Board spells out list of year's goals

Roberts said he's also working on a new science and medicine magnet program for Deep Creek High School, building relationships with community businesses, and switching the division's computers over from the old Novell operating system to one developed by Microsoft.

ii. Campus Increases Internet Bandwidth

The changes consist of a new password policy, switching from the Novell program to Microsoft Active Directory, and expanding the Wi-Fi access across campus.

The latest development in the SCO case is explained in the following new press release from SCO:

The SCO Group, Inc., (Pink Sheets: SCOXQ), www.sco.com, a leading provider of UNIX€® software technology, today announced that it is pursuing a sale of substantially all of the assets of its UNIX€® business, including certain UNIX system V software products and related services. The asset sale will be free and clear of liens and encumbrances pursuant to Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Interested parties must submit a bid by close of business, October 5, 2010. For information on the company or the sale, please contact Ocean Park Advisors, LLC, 6033 West Century Blvd., Suite 1290, Los Angeles, CA 90045, Attn: Bruce Comer, Managing Director, (310) 670-2721; Mark Fisler, Managing Director, (310) 670-2704.

Joab Jackson wrote an article about it for IDG:

Even as it continues to battle for Unix ownership in court, the SCO Group plans to auction off most all of its Unix assets, including "certain UNIX system V software products and related services," the company announced Thursday.

Interested parties must submit a bid for the assets by Oct. 5.

Glyn Moody said, "this worries me," but Carlo Piana said to him, "what you fear, that they end up to a troll, sorry, to a litigation firm? As if they weren't already? ;-)" ⬆