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Canopy Reorganizes - Updated
Friday, May 19 2006 @ 11:01 AM EDT

The Salt Lake Tribune informs us that Canopy has reorganized, with former Novell executive and chairman of Helius Inc. Ron Heinz as Executive Manager. Helius is a Canopy company. [ Update: The Salt Lake Tribune no longer provides the article for free. It is still available from its archives.]

The new general counsel and director of finance is Brandon Tidwell, who was with Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, the law firm that so ably represented the Noorda family in the litigation with the former head of Canopy, Ralph Yarro et al.

Evidently, the predictions of Canopy's doom by analysts Rob Enderle and Laura DiDio were misguided. See? That's why I always say, I want to be an analyst when I grow up. As I have observed repeatedly, it's the only job where you can have huge gaps in your knowledge, get vital facts utterly wrong, say the opposite of what is observably true, and nobody sues you. In fact, they actually pay you good money, and the next time they want to know something, they forget you got it all wrong the last time and ask you for your opinion all over again.

UPDATED: The Daily Herald has more details, including a list of all Canopy companies, including the ex-companies, and this quotation from the new executive manager: "Our No. 1 objective is to continue investing in our existing portfolio, and evaluate future investments in other information technology companies, with a bias toward Utah County," he said. "For now we can't comment on the amount of investment to be made, but we do have access to a significant amount of capital. . . .We're also looking to be more active in trade groups such as the Utah Technology Council, and to co-invest with other venture capital companies such as vSpring," Heinz said." You remember vSpring Capital. As for the Utah Technology Council, there's a little water under that bridge too.

From the SLC Tribune article:

Those concerns were put to rest Wednesday when two sons of legendary Canopy founder Ray Noorda announced a new executive to manage the firm's portfolio, which holds interest in some of the state's leading high-tech companies....

"We are here to drive and control everything we can on a going forward basis," Heinz said in discussing Canopy's future course.

Canopy currently has an ownership interest in 13 Utah companies, including MyFamily.com, Maxstream Inc. and Directpointe Inc. "We're looking forward to adding number 14 to our portfolio, and then as many as we can," Heinz said. "And we have plenty of dry powder [capital] to go after those companies."


  


Canopy Reorganizes - Updated | 162 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections here, please
Authored by: Jude on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 11:43 AM EDT
... so PJ can find them.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT here, please
Authored by: Jude on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 11:44 AM EDT
And please make links clickable.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy Reorganizes
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 12:05 PM EDT
However it does make it easier to get investors/public support if you find the
analysit who has the right opinion.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Good Luck Canopy
Authored by: seanlynch on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 12:07 PM EDT
I wish the Canopy Group best of luck in its new endeavours. I hope they recover
from the abuses of past leadership, and carry on with only the best intentions
of the original founder Ray Noorda.

The family of Mr. Noorda seemed shocked when they learned what had become of his
dream. Hopefully they will make things right.

Again, good luck.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy Reorganizes
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 12:14 PM EDT
Seems to work well in other fields.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Does Canopy MATTER Anymore?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 12:19 PM EDT
When they found out that an apple in their barrel went rotten, they tossed it
out. Now they are moving right along. I wish them the best of luck! But does
Groklaw care anymore? Should this be a subject of interest? (Other than to
poke idiots in the eye?)

-- Alma

[ Reply to This | # ]

Can't help but wonder...
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 12:30 PM EDT
If this reorg somehow helps their legal position just in case the IBM steam
roller turns in their direction for a little course correction after SCOg
looking for any M$ involvement. I would not want to be a stepping stone in IBM's
way when that happens. In fact I hope they do 'go for it'. :)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy Reorganizes
Authored by: Yossarian on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 12:45 PM EDT
> Evidently, the predictions of Canopy's doom by analysts
>Rob Enderle and Laura DiDio were misguided.

With hindsight 20/20 it seems like the story is probably
along the lines of: "Canopy had realized that Yarro/SCO were
a long term liability, and SCO stock was worthless. So
Canopy got rid off the liability and paid in SCO stock for that."

>That's why I always say, I want to be an analyst when I grow up.

After you have had put so much effort in being right,
why do you want to be wrong when you grow up?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Analyst or ...?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 02:38 PM EDT
Actually, there is another profession which fits that job description pretty
well.

Psychic.

Check out Sylvia Brown, John Edward, James van Praagh and others at <a
href="http://www.google.com/u/JREF">JREF</a>.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Analyst or ...? - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 20 2006 @ 01:50 AM EDT
What Happened to ..
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 03:17 PM EDT
Bob Mimms, and Mr. Mustard?

Who is Steven Oberbeck?

I don't recall seeing his name on any thing before, this is very much a Mimms
type of article.

---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]

The reason that Enderle and DiDio said what they said
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 19 2006 @ 11:02 PM EDT
The reason that Enderle and DiDio said what they said - about Canopy not being
able to survive without Yarro: Is because that what Yarro (or Yarro's friends)
told them.

And why would Yarro (or Yarro's friends) tell them that?

Because that was what Yarro's case in the lawsuit involving NFT, Canopy, etc.,
was alleging.

If that case hadn't been settled, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Yarro's
lawyers citing Enderle and DiDio as "evidence" that Canopy couldn't
survive without Yarro (no matter that the Enderle and DiDio got their info from
Yarro in the first place).

We have seen, at least once in SCO v IBM, SCO's lawyers citing evidence from a
press article (saying it was a widespread belief that Linux infringed UNIX
copyrights) - which they omitted to mention was a summary of an earlier article
which was an interview with Darl McBride (where Darl said it was a widespread
belief...)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy Reorganizes
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, May 20 2006 @ 03:31 PM EDT
You don't seem to have a high regard for Laura's reporting ethics or diligence.
Maybe objectivity is for sale subjectivity or vice versa.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy Reorganizes - Updated
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, May 22 2006 @ 06:58 PM EDT
"Utah County"???

I thought Utah was a STATE.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Specious analysis
Authored by: The Cornishman on Tuesday, May 23 2006 @ 11:19 AM EDT
Just wanted to share this one with you, which comes from an article about Larry Ellison's purported desire to have an Oracle-branded Linux distribution.
At one pole are analysts like Laura Didio of the Yankee Group, who disagrees with the thesis that building a Red Hat clone would be quick and easy. "Linux is not a commodity and software is as much an art as it is a science. If he bases his clone on the General Public License [the overarcing agreement covering the fair use of Linux], we're talking about 6 million lines of code to debug," she says.
Source: www.thestreet.com

Gee, that's pretty flaky stuff, that Linux.

---
(c) assigned to PJ

[ Reply to This | # ]
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