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| Invoices Not Needed, SCO Says |
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Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 12:49 AM EDT
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In this Detroit News story Blake Stowell explains why no one has received an invoice: "SCO in August said Linux users could avoid lawsuits by paying a one-time fee of $699. The fee will rise to $1,399 on Oct. 15. Since the response to its appeal was adequate, SCO didn't send bills to thousands of Linux users, company spokesman Blake Stowell said." [emphasis added] um...'kay. Well, that's that, then. If SCOSpeaks, naturally, we take them at their word. Except, I thought their recently filed 10Q said they had no takers. I've only heard of one anonymous payor mentioned in the press. So, unless there has been a firestorm of interest since that filing, we must conclude that they have come to their senses and have realized they don't need to bully as much money from innocent end users as they thought they did. Either that or it's finally dawned on somebody in Utah with a GPL clue, maybe informed in part by reading a certain open letter, that they were steering their poor little fishing boat into the middle of a perfect storm.
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| Authored by: hombresecreto on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 01:46 AM EDT |
Don't you just love the fact that the figure on the IBM suit keeps getting
inflated? Now it's up to $50 Billion in that report. Must be nice not to be
able to get your facts straight and still get paid.
Es mejor morir de pie, que vivir de rodillas.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 01:49 AM EDT |
Actually they announced their first licensee in a press release, and mentioned
that there was at least one other (but didn't name any) in a press interview, I
think with McMillan of IDG.
Any revenue from such licenses, would be in the next 10-Q, not the last one.
This fresh Stowellism, shows SCO is not going to shut up. Yes it might be
damaging to them in court, but it's beginning to look like they don't care
about that.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 01:55 AM EDT |
Suggest that the next Groklaw letter be to consumer protection and state AG's.
Obviously they are selling licences if response has been adequate....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rjamestaylor on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 02:17 AM EDT |
Perhaps the flood of derisive correspondance has them saying, "Enough,
already!"
On a related note, what do you do when your employer takes a public stance that
places you, as a front line customer service / call center operator, in
"harms way" w/r/t those derisive corresponders? I'd be Put Out.
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SCO delenda est![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 02:22 AM EDT |
I thought that various folks had tried to purchase an SCO license and
their marketing departments (one was in the US, one in Europe) were clueless
and/or said that they had no license to sell just yet.
Give me a second
on those links.
Here:
The first one is a joke.
This one is about an Irish Linux
User.
There was at least one more legit attempt that has been
documented on a web page, but I can't find it ATM. Maybe someone else
knows.
The license sounds neither well received nor actually
purchasable.
DylBot[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 02:36 AM EDT |
Okay, what do you want now from poor Blake?
The response was "you're going to regret it."
Very adequate in my opinion. You don't think it is?
And can you blame SCO for listening and backing off?
</tongue-in-cheek>[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 02:38 AM EDT |
This price currently says the lower price applies until 1 October.
I'm pretty sure that the lower price was previously supposed to apply until 15
October 2000.
I first noticed the page saying 1 October, a day or two ago.
http://www.sco.com/scosource/description.html
"SCO is offering introductory, promotion pricing until October 1, 2003.
Customers who are interested in purchasing the SCO IP license for Linux should
contact their SCO sales representative or call SCO at 1-800 726-8649 for further
information."
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: DrStupid on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 03:31 AM EDT |
Stowell's "adequate response" can only refer to voluntary licensees
(e.g. the 2 unnamed companies so far)
For the response to be genuinely adequate, the revenue would have to be a
6-figure sum - after all, this is meant to be TSG's revenue stream, replacing
the one-off backhanders from Sun and Microsoft.
At $699 a shot, that would be thousands of licences sold.
Now, if TSG had sold thousands of licences to voluntary buyers (i.e. without
sending them "invoices"), wouldn't this have been announced as a
great PR coup?
And given that Stowell is deliberately avoiding numbers (PR rule: the only
numbers you don't give are the ones you don't like) why not say the response
was "excellent", or even "encouraging"?
Imagine if Microsoft refused to announce sales figures for Windows Server 2003,
and instead merely said they were "adequate." The NASDAQ would
*looove* that - not!
It would appear that their scheme has flopped more badly than even we imagined.
Of course given that Stowell has contradicted himself before, he may follow this
up with an "I was misquoted, I said 'spectacular' - honest" story.
;)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cedric on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 03:33 AM EDT |
For a brief moment of humour (those of you alergic to bad puns should skip this)
-- shouldn't we all generally be on the alert (especially in the court room,
though!) for those tricky hot shot Utah boys trying this trick: substituting
"The SCOtruth" in place of "The Whole Truth".
I just had
this image of a swearing in:
Court Clerk: Do you swear to tell
whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
The
Abomidable SCOman: I swear to tell the SCOTruth and nothing by the SCOTruth,
so help me God.
Anyway, I'm sure you all get the idea. Back to our
regularly scheduled learned discussion. :)
---
Cedric Puddy,
CCj/Clearline [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Alex on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 11:02 AM EDT |
Thank you, ever delightful PJ, for another lovely and enlightening explanation
of our legal system.
Alex
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: belzecue on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 11:09 AM EDT |
| Under the Revenue Recognition section of SCO's latest 10Q it says:
"The Company’s SCOsource licensing
revenue to date has been generated from license agreements that are
non-exclusive, perpetual, paid up licenses to utilize the Company’s UNIX source
code. The Company recognizes revenue from licensing agreements when a signed
contract exists, the fee is fixed and determinable, collection of the
receivable is probable and delivery has occurred. If the payment terms extend
beyond the Company’s normal payment terms, revenue is recognized as the payments
become due."
For SCO to add the linux license revenue to it's bottom line, a
signed contract must exist for each transaction...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 11:41 AM EDT |
not knowing who SCO is will read that article and say that SCO must be one of
the big boys because it's stock price is so high. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 11:42 AM EDT |
| "...Since the response to its appeal was adequate, SCO didn't send bills to
thousands of Linux users, company spokesman Blake Stowell said."
He really
meant to say that the negative response to its appeal was so
strong, SCO chickened out :)) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 02:23 PM EDT |
I think that what Blake Stowell means by "the response was adequate"
is that the stock price went up when the plan to invoice Linux users was
announced. That's all the response that they are looking for.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Clay on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 04:14 PM EDT |
I don't know any of your businesses work, but for my business my accountant
won't let me pay someone unless they send me an invoice first. Not a letter, an
invoice. That invoice then goes to AP and its processed. Does SCO think someone
is going to process a letter?
Who is going to pay for this unless they actively try to hunt down SCO and ask
for this? Nobody that's who. From what I have read from people who have tried,
that can be an hour wasted in a sales phone tree trying to find out how to even
get an invoice. You then leave your contact info, (like I would do that when
they are threatening me), so they can threaten you when they get around to it.
Not only are they making false claims and calling me a thief, they now want me
to come to them hat in hand and ask for the invoice. Incredible. Rediculous.
Absurd.
If thier invoices tactic wont fly I am afraid that thier licensing revenue for
Linux seats is utterly hopeless. I guess they will have to live off their m$
blood money.
Clay
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newObjectivity, Inc. supports the destruction
of all software patents.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 04:14 PM EDT |
Why does SCO say IBM and Red Hat should indemnify end users, if the 'response'
to the 'appeal' is 'adequate' for them? They are not going to change their
mind and start suing them soon, are they?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Scott_Lazar on Wednesday, October 01 2003 @ 06:29 PM EDT |
Okay, a question for those more learned in the ways of high finance. This
scenario is difficult to put in words so please bear with me:
I'm finding it more than...coincidental...that every time TSG speaks (even when
their comments make little or NO sense, such as todays commentary regarding
invoices), their stock price seems to rise, to the point where the MOVEMENT of
the stock price seems to be as much a...deliberate...PR tool. Is there any way,
such as through SEC filings etc. that one can determine who the major
shareholders are, or simply who (either singularly or in aggregate) controls the
majority (I'm not just talking about a 50.1 % controlling interest, but whether
say a small group (such as Canopy and their friends holds say 70-80%))?
Someone had commented some time ago that there seemed to be very little
'institutional' investor interest in TSG stock, or perhaps there was very
little TSG stock available for purchase. This leads me to wonder whether there
is any type of deliberate stock manipulation going on:
Hypothetical situation: Say person 'A' holds 100,000 shares of stock in a
company. The person might not be visibly connected with the company (but in
reality might be a 'good friend' of one or two members of the company's inner
circle'. Person 'A', working in coordination chooses today to sell all
100,000 shares and the current stock price is $20.00 per share.
Now take person 'B'. Again not an active connection to the company, but also
a 'friend of the inner circle'. Say this person was given the heads up that
100,000 shares were going to be available for purchase today, and calls their
broker based on this tip (I know, I know, insider trading, a serious no no).
Based off of this give and take between two seeming unrelated investors, with
sufficient quantity of stock changing hands, and totally ignoring the illegality
of the process, wouldn't it be possible to endlessly manipulate the stock price
at will?
We've previously commented on the notion of 'pump and dump'. I'm just
wondering if there's more TO the process in this case than perhaps we've paid
attention to.
Just wondering out loud if there's yet another angle to their gyrations.
Scott
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LINUX - Visibly superior![ Reply to This | # ]
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