SCO Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy 421
Can you say "the SCO, the" in German? writes "Trading of SCO's stock has been halted on news that SCO has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This move just so happens to fall on the eve of SCO's trial with Novell. One would think that their prior boasts were mostly bluster, that they believe they have almost no chance of prevailing at trial, and that they're now desperate to protect their executives from SCO's creditors while seeking yet another delay. From the release: 'The SCO Group intends to maintain all normal business operations throughout the bankruptcy proceedings. Subject to court approval, SCO and its subsidiaries will use the cash flow from their consolidated operations to meet their capital needs during the reorganization process. "We want to assure our customers and partners that they can continue to rely on SCO products, support and services for their business critical operations," said Darl McBride, President and CEO, The SCO Group. "Chapter 11 reorganization provides the Company with an opportunity to protect its assets during this time while focusing on building our future plans."'"
It's Been Fun (Score:5, Insightful)
For those of you who bought SCOX stock in hopes that they would win this case, you had better sell it. In the past 20 minutes, it has dropped from $0.66 to $0.37 cents (and still is dropping).
According to your market data your net income was a $16.6 million loss. And when your total revenue was under $30 million, you really shouldn't even try to keep operating. Why is this Chapter 11? I guess it's going to come down to one unkillable lawyer with SCO tattooed on his chest. At that point, we'll have to call an exorcist.
Re:Get out the violin (Score:1, Insightful)
come back? nah (Score:5, Insightful)
There are tons of good Unix and Linux distributors out there... no reason to choose SCO anymore.
You want free and good? Linux and BSD. You want enterprise level? IBM and Sun. You want Windows-based? Dell and HP. You wanna convert your entire revenue stream into attorney fees billed at $400/hr? Take SCO.
Re:Get out the violin (Score:5, Insightful)
"SCO is doing this to make Novell into a creditor with respect to the money SCO owes to Novell."
Won't work. Novell's claim isn't as a creditor. Their claim is "equitable", meaning that SCO is holding theor property ($$$), not that SCO owes them money. When you go bankrupt, anyone who can show that they own property you're holding on to can claim it from the trustee.
This happens a lot with vending machines, for example, when a plant goes bust. The owner proves that the machine is theirs (not leased or anything - it really is theirs), and they then get to pick it up.
Since Novell already has a judgment saying that SCO is guilty of conversion, and the question is "how much", they have a prior claim to the property (money) in question. SCO is dead.
Re:Dear Darl, (Score:5, Insightful)
Bankruptcy prevents an entity's creditors from forcing liquidation of the entity's assets. If Novell won it's case against SCO, Novell could enforce it's judgment against SCO and force SCO to dissolve. If SCO was dissolved the case against IBM would disappear. Now that SCO has filed for bankruptcy it is protected from its creditors. Therefore Novell cannot get the licensing fees SCO owes it, and SCO can continue to exist.
Filing for bankruptcy is not SCO tossing in the towel, it is more like SCO knows it is going to lose, and is now trying to bite off Novell's ear to get Disqualified instead of Knocked Out.
Judge Kimball has next week off (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One word (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that just a Greek word instead of a German word? (And one that nobody understands, too?)
Re:Sad, sad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Rant/
Just look at all they have learned by going through the courts with no evidence and being laughed at by the people who review the case and get the facts instead of reading their press releases. They are literally filing for bankruptcy and assuring their customers that they are fine and can rely on them at the same time... AT THE SAME TIME! No reasonable company would be so immune to shame, so ignorant of the mocking thats going on right in front of them, and still be able to tell people that everythings OK. That these bottomdwellers are still making a living, still giving themselves bonuses and trying to protect their stock is a slap in the face for american justice. This is another Enron, this is another corporation exec scandle happening right now, at this very moment. They are telling us that they don't care that they are wrong and have taken the courts time and our money and threatened people, intimidated customers, extorted from innocent and ignorant law abiding citicens and companies who only wanted to avoid doing the wrong thing and pay whatever license fees to whoever owned the code they were using. They have either planned this and acted accordingly to draw it out, or they employ the most ignorant legal councel out there to advise them. No proof, no problem, No evidence, no problem, No case, no problem. Lets all make a bunch of money! Dirty rat bastards. And we will as a nation let another one get away with it. The people who made these decisions will walk away with millions. We'll complain and let them walk. Accomplices to the raping of this country.
Re:It's Been Fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Too late. Your stock price feed most likely has a time delay built in. Trading will have been halted as soon as the news comes out. This is the insiders dumping their stock before the news gets out.
Isn't that horribly, horribly illegal? Will we get to see the SEC frog-march Darl and the crew for insider trading?
Re:Dear Darl, (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be a bad thing, we don't want the IBM case to disappear, we want IBM have a very strong favorable ruling. Any other outcome means this was all a waste of time with no precedents set.
Re:Get out the violin (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's Been Fun (Score:3, Insightful)
Chris Mattern
Re:Dear Darl, (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be a bad thing, we don't want the IBM case to disappear, we want IBM have a very strong favorable ruling. Any other outcome means this was all a waste of time with no precedents set.
The Novell ruling removed any chance of a precedence being set. once Judge Kimball said "Novel owns the copyrights, and Novell did have the right to prevent you from suing IBM" the IBM case was dead. There was no chance a precedence would be set as far as Open Source code and the Free Software community was concerned.
This result has no effect on IBM except to limit the additional outlay of money IBM has to spend to defend themselves. There is obviously no money in SCO to pay IBM for the litigation expenses the bogus suit has given them.
The only three things I believe are left to discover are 1; can Novell be first to the Buffet and 2; can they pierce the corporate veil, and 3; is there a prosecutable criminal case here.
Re:Need to Look at the Big Picture (Score:2, Insightful)
Learn about the GPL first. Then about "unclean hands" and "promissory estoppel" and finally about "Anti-trust".
Mods, you're idiots.
Re:seeking bankruptcy and still in business (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that they are using the bankruptcy to escape the stock plummet that would follow the judgements that are comming is a cop out of their responsibility for the actions they have taken. I never said that they were going out of business, closing operations, or filing a different type of bankruptcy that would leed to those outcomes, and if you read that somewhere it was your assumption not mine. The problem I have with the simultanious assurance to their customers is that they are using a restructuring tactic to avoid the fallout of their horrible choices and appear to be a reliable company to anybody. It's a joke and it's on US ALL for allowing it.
The Chapter 11 hearing should be short (Score:3, Insightful)
So let's see... you took $500 million in paid in equity and in nine short years managed to parley that into a princely sum less than $5 million. In the history of your company your only profitable quarter a judge has found that some if not all of your revenue was the proceeds of conversion that you have spent and can no longer pay back. Your liabilities include the counterclaims remaining from baseless lawsuits you have filed after your claims have been revealed to have no substance.
Liquidation cannot cure your victims, but it should help prevent you from finding any more.
Re:Sad, sad news (Score:5, Insightful)
Personal responsibility is for suckers and fools.
Smart people form corporations so they can lie, cheat, and steal with impunity.