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| Canopy: Past, Present and Future |
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Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 10:37 AM EST
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There is a spooky article by Bob Mims today on Canopy, its past and speculations on its future. He quotes a number of Canopy CEOs on Canopy's success in the past and their belief that Canopy can continue, despite recent events, and then it quotes SCO's Darl McBride:
"[Canopy's] influence on the technology industry will be felt for many years to come," McBride says. "We now look forward to working even more closely with Ralph Yarro as our largest shareholder and wish the Canopy Group continued success." That strikes me as about as sincere as a first wife wishing her ex and his new, much-younger bride all the happiness in the world. I remember when the first "news" of Val Kreidel's death broke, SCO and Yarro, as I recall, immediately expressed great doubts about Canopy's future. Now, that task is left to Rob Enderle and Laura DiDio, who each express the thought that without a Noorda family member involved, the company's future is under a cloud. Enderle opines that it will be hard to attract investors to what now appears an unstable company, and Laura DiDio, who is described as a longtime acquaintance of Ray Noorda, shares her wisdom: "Canopy was always Ray Noorda's baby," DiDio says. "With Ray and all of his hand-picked executives out of the picture and the remaining Noorda offspring's relative inexperience and unfamiliarity with Canopy . . . I don't think the Noorda family has any immediate answers."
However, I remember that in Ralph Yarro's lawsuit, it was his firm assertion that no Noorda family member has been involved in any meaningful way for many years, and that he was steering the ship pretty much by himself. If that is the case, why would it be any harder for William Mustard to do the same? His resume is impressive. And why are all the longtime allies of SCO quickly predicting Canopy's doom? In short, if this were a movie, I'd be starting to wonder just what is really going on here, and is it conceivable any of the players in this little drama want Canopy to fall apart? UPDATE: The url to the Salt Lake Tribune no longer works. Try this instead. UPDATE 2: Neither link works. You'd have to pay the Salt Lake Tribune to get the article from its archives now. This is why newspapers are dying. They provide breaking news for free online, and then they think they can charge you for articles that are years and years from being breaking news.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 10:59 AM EST |
I think you mean "Ralph Yarro" rather than "Ralph Noorda".
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| Authored by: artp on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 11:00 AM EST |
Just because it's the way we do things here.
Happy Easter, everyone![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 11:02 AM EST |
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| Authored by: artp on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 11:02 AM EST |
Please put OT comments here.
Making links is considerate and are made as follows:
<a href="http://www.example.com">your comment here</a>
Also remember to change the post mode to "html"
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| Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 11:36 AM EST |
If Canopy's purpose was to benefit the Noorda's disabled son and two charities.
It makes perfect sense to me to wind it down in an orderly manner, allowing all
of the Canopy Companies to seek alternate arrangements. Remember Mustard is,
among other things, experienced in liquidating assets.
I have speculated that Canopy was Ray Noorda's way of keeping his hand in while
enjoying retirement. If that was a part of the purpose, then that phase of his
retirement is over and Canopy now serves no purpose other than to take care of
the beneficiaries.
It may well take a few years for Canopy to wind down, however without a
visionary leader a Venture Capital company s not very interesting. One of
Canopy's real values to its investments was the endorsement of Ray Noorda. His
approval had value well beyond the actual investment and made it possible for
the companies to get additional financing. Remember Canopy is a financial entity
it has no real ongoing operations or customers.
---
Rsteinmetz
"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Hmm... - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 28 2005 @ 12:12 PM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 12:03 PM EST |
Hope Mr Mustard succeeds with gusto.
He's made a good start by dumping SCO into Yarro's lap.
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| Authored by: TomWiles on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 12:23 PM EST |
Canopy is a private company, and where there are some filings with the SEC (all
4 or 13D) no real fianacials are available. My understanding is that Ray Noorda
set up canopy in the early 90's with total capitalization of around 160 Million.
My numbers could be wrong as they come from memory and I have no recollection
of where I heard them.
My understanding is that, while Canopy had substantial initial success, its net
assets never reached the Billion Dollar mark. Again, being a privately held
company, very little real information is known.
Canopy held some 10 Million shares of SCOX which at one time would have been
worth about 200 Million dollars. That implies that SCOX could have accounted
for as much as 25% of Canopy's portfolio. That is now gone.
Also, it appears (from current court filings which are more reliable) that
management (in the last couple of years) may have been flipping companies just
to generate bonus payouts.
The press release of the current settlement implies a cash settlememt of some
unknown amount was made to Yarro and company.
Where I have no way of knowing, my feeling is that the liquid value of Canopy is
probably under half a billion dollars, maybe substantially under tha figure. It
appears that past management has been milking the company since (possibly) 1998,
and I think it is reasonable to assume that they were competant enough to do a
good job.
With Val Noorda's death (and I wish she had chosen another option) there is no
one left at Canopy who could reasonably be considered to have an influencial
position with regard to Canopy strategic policy.
It is very difficult to prove a negative, but I am of the opinion that Canopy
has now distanced itself from both Yarro and the SCO-IBM lawsuit. I am of the
opinion that (except for historical completeness) Canopy and the Noorda's are no
longer an item of interest in the current court case.
Just my opinion.
Tom[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Chris Lingard on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 01:06 PM EST |
There is no reason that Canopy should have much future. It is the wish of
Ray Noorda that the capital goes to charity on his death. Since the Noordas are
old, they would not want any long term, or risky investments.
Canopy
have already got rid of the SCO shares, and done some house cleaning. I think
that the current Canopy management will see it as their duty to realise the
maximum value from the assets. Then the Noordas will be happy that their
charities will gain maximum benefit.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 01:18 PM EST |
| while i've been mostly impressed with Bob Mims' reportage, i am finding it
more
and more suspect, given that Enderle and DiDio appear to be his main
sources,
and one or both are consistently quoted in his articles--even given
the
partisan nature of Groklaw, the opinions of both Enderle and DiDio are so
biased, and their loyalties so suspect, that one would think that a seasoned
reporter would sense this, and try to leaven his reportage with somebody less
controversial (Dion Cornett?).
Turning the situation around, it's the same
as if PJ was his main quoted
source--even though her credibility is miles ahead
of Enderle and DiDio, one
could rightly make the claim that an article with her
as the sole expert source
would not be very balanced (can you imagine the howls
from the pro-sco
cabal if this were the case?)
Is this a case of influence
peddling, or just lazy reporting? Mr. Mims, i don't
mean to insult you, but
your slip is showing!
-DWitt [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Bob Mims - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 02:01 PM EST
- Read the article again - Authored by: RedBarchetta on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 02:54 PM EST
- Bob Mims - Authored by: PJ on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 04:39 PM EST
- Bob Mims - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 05:09 PM EST
- Bob Mims - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 06:58 PM EST
- Bob Mims - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 10:43 PM EST
- Bob Mims - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 07:40 PM EST
- ok, *my* slip is showing! - Authored by: DWitt_nyc on Monday, March 28 2005 @ 11:45 AM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 01:27 PM EST |
The first thing that the new Canopy management needs to do is to define their
objectives. If, as we have been told, the primary objective is to provide a
lifetime support trust for a disadvantaged member of the Noorda family then a
program of risk reduction seems to be called for.
The previous management were taking a lot of risks with the trust's money, which
is inconsistant with the accepted way of running such a trust.
Reducing risks may leave some latitude for continued venture capital
investments, but these should be low risk and be balanced by other blue chip
investments.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 05:17 PM EST |
You know, my impression is the exact opposite. While reading his latest
article, I'm of the mind that Mr Mims's reporting is both fair and balanced,
while attempting to present all sides to a story.
He is a true journalist.
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| Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 07:47 PM EST |
RSS feed detection
The RSS feed on Groklaw isn't automatically detected by the FireFox's live
bookmarks feature.
Any Ideas how to fix this? (it would be nice for groklaw to be as fire fox
friendly as possible)
:-)
---
"They [each] put in one hour of work,
but because they share the end results
they get nine hours... for free"
Firstmonday 98 interview with Linus Torvalds[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 08:35 PM EST |
I thought, according to Yarro's complaint, and Yarro's friends, Canopy was for
several years the result of Yarro's efforts, etc., etc. And that Noorda had
effectively retired years ago
Now we hear from these very same folks, that Canopy can't survive without a
Noorda[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 08:37 PM EST |
I haven't read any bad comment about Mustard and his previous business
dealings. From reports I have read, he can't be that young, he is very
experienced and has been called into companies in a troubleshooting role
before.
He undoubtedly took his instructions from Val Kriedel but Terry
Peterson is also involved. As are both the Noordas to a certain extent and their
other kids and the other Canopy shareholders and the charities.
I think he is
working on a task which is already understood and approved by these people.
I
believe his task is to rescue Canopy from Yarro and to maximise its value before
the Noorda's eventual demise. Although Ray has his problems and Mrs. Noorda is
quite old, that date could still be some years away.
He sounds a professional
and unless someone (who? they all stand to gain if he does a good job) instructs
him otherwise
I expect him to carry on although he may be hampered by the lack
of Val's input.
Was Val running Canopy? I don't think so, I think she called
called in a professional acting on wise people's advice. Val wasn't going to
inherit, she wanted to rescue her family's reputation and what was left of their
business.
Wouldn't you?
Mustard's plans are already in place.
Brian S. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, March 27 2005 @ 09:26 PM EST |
| Bob Mims' employer, The Salt Lake Tribune is owned by the LDS church. It is in
Mr Mims' best interests to be non-controversial.
The Salt Lake Tribune was
sold to the common distribution company of the LDS church owned Deseret News by
the Trib's majority stock holder TCI and TCI's CEO Leo
Hindery who is another David Boies client BTW.
Hindery helped loot
WorldCom and I don't know why he was never prosecuted for that. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 28 2005 @ 12:39 AM EST |
Does anyone know if Enderle or Didio, or the firms they are associated with,
have owned or currently own stock or options in SCO?
If so, this would not be the first time some analyist, financial advisor or
promoter has hawked stock of companies' whose products have reached the end of
their life cycle, just to squeeze extra gains out of their investments.
If not, why would anyone risk association with the promotion of a company that
may ultimately end in an investigation for potential legal wrong doing or ruin
the their own reputations. A win for IBM will be a loss for anyone accociated
with the losing party. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 28 2005 @ 12:40 AM EST |
...since Ralph thought it was a good idea to get SCO into the litigation
business, Canopy thought it would be fair for him to stay the course, *on his
own*. He was a money maker, not an ethician. Sort of a just punishment, with an
outside chance of reprieve. [ Reply to This | # ]
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