05.06.09
Say Goodbye to SCO
“On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO’s strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”
Summary: SCO headed for Chapter 7 Eleven
SCO may no longer have just a yard sale for court money; it seems more like a final liquidation. Will Novell receive a penny?
Here it is, the moment many of you have been waiting for: the U.S. Trustee’s office, through its counsel Joseph J. McMahon, Jr., has filed a motion in the SCO bankruptcy proceeding to convert the SCO’s Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. And I think this will be your favorite sentence:
Additionally, not only is there no reasonable chance of “rehabilitation” in these cases, the Debtors have tried — and failed — to liquidate their business in chapter 11.
So what’s left? Dismissal or, more logically, Chapter 7. SCO’s been in Chapter 11 as long as it’s supposed to be, and it’s tried three times to figure out a “rehabilitation” plan, and nothing panned out. Meanwhile, SCO reports a net negative cash flow of more than $3.5 million in its March 2009 report. $3.5 million since the bankruptcy was first filed in September 2007, and that represents cause to switch to Chapter 7, the Trustee’s Office argues, due to “substantial or continuing loss to or diminution of the estate and the absence of a reasonable likelihood of rehabilitation.” That’s $3.5 million that could have been paid to Novell.
I never expected SCO to be rehabilitated. Oh. Different definition. The Trustee’s Office means “to put back in good condition; re-establish on a sound, firm basis.” I mean to admit it was wrong, turn around and sin no more. Like *that* will ever happen.
This is also covered in the so-called mainstream press.
The SCO Group and its battle against IBM and Novell over ownership of computer code may have taken a decisive turn Tuesday when a U.S. Bankruptcy Court official sought permission to dissolve the company and sell off its assets.
The filing in bankruptcy court in Delaware came just as attorneys for the Utah company were preparing for arguments today in an appeals court in Denver. A favorable decision there would reverse a ruling that caused SCO to seek bankruptcy court protection in the first place.
Tom’s article also appeared here, not just the local press.
The timing is interesting because The American Lawyer’s Andrew Longstreth has just published this article about Boies Schiller. It also covers the SCO case:
The firm has lost money so far on The SCO Group Inc.’s doomed litigation against International Business Machines Corp. and Novell Inc., over its UNIX software code and technology. Under a deal struck in 2004, Boies Schiller agreed to cap its fees, and those of two other firms it hired, at $31 million in exchange for a percentage of any recovery. But the cases haven’t resulted in any recovery, and in 2007 SCO filed for bankruptcy. Boies Schiller is continuing to pursue the litigation through the appeals process. (SCO’s case against Novell is pending before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while the IBM case is currently stayed.) According to one Boies Schiller lawyer, the firm is “way into the red” on the matter.
Here ends another chapter in the SCO saga. Chapter 7. Like Vista 7. █
“Acer and Intel, for example, are already complaining that Windows 7 Starter Edition simply won’t sell.”
“Microsoft hardly needs an SCO source license. Its license payment to SCO is simply a good-looking way to pass along a bribe…”
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
the11thplague said,
May 6, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I mean, really ? Is SCO really something we can say goodbye to ?
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Get your SCO memorabilia while it lasts.