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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