SCO Possibly Delisted from NASDAQ 366
canfirman writes "Reuters is reporting that SCO could be delisted from the NASDAQ because "it has not filed its annual 10-K report with the SEC". The company claims it's because "it is examining matters related to stock issued as part of its compensation plans". SCO Stock is sitting at $4.30 at opening today. It'll be interesing to see where it goes from here."
requirements? (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll appeal (Score:5, Interesting)
The rules that lead to being delisted are pretty cut-and-dried. However, a company with a solid business plan to rescue themselves will more often than not be given a break and allowed to remain listed while they work things out. Failing to file your 10-K is almost never an "accident". Add to that the fact that SCO really has no business plan beyond lawsuits and I think we'll likely be seeing them de-listed fairly rapidly.
Buying stock certificates? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I'm serious.
Re:Gloating? (Score:5, Interesting)
Same thing happened with Enron stocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It this the first sign that they are folding (Score:3, Interesting)
There is probably nothing wrong with the Accounting department.
SCO Website (Score:5, Interesting)
very funny and depressing at the same time.
Screw the Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If they go down. (Score:3, Interesting)
> leave the whole Linux IP issue ? Not proven ?
> Wouldn't it be better if they can at least survive
> until they get totally defeated in court, as a
> deterrent against other legal attacks ?
That is my fear. I'd prefer to put up with another year of SCO, and have them handed their balls on a platter by a court, than to have them simply cease functioning, and some other company come along, by the foetid remains and restart the process, bringing another two or three years of litigation and threats.
To my mind, having SCO sink now would be bad, because the fundemental claims would not be tested, and it would only invite another attack.
Re:If they go down. (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting buried in a countersuit that completely bankrupts your company without even getting all the way through trial is about the biggest deterrent that I can imagine. The next SCO wannabe will think twice before suing Big Blue. Once SCO is gone the entire question of whether or not Linux is tainted with illegal UNIX code becomes moot. With SCO out of the way the only company that has even a little bit of a shot of using UNIX copyrights against Linux becomes Novell, and Novell has essentially bet the future of the company on Linux.
It was a stretch for Caldera (now SCO), a long time Linux distributor to pretend that they didn't know that their copyrighted code had been included in Linux. After Novell's involvement in the SCO vs. IBM case even the dimmest jury would find it impossible to believe that Novell didn't intend to distribute Linux under the terms of the GPL.
In essence, as long as the folks who own and control the old UNIX copyrights are actively distributing Linux the community has very little to fear.
It would be nice if the GPL was tested in court, if only to shut up all of the GPL naysayers, but that would simply be a bonus.
Which Endgame? (Score:3, Interesting)
I prefer them to stay in business but completely disengage from their anti-Linux/anti-Open Source antics. Darl and his goons should leave and people with some damn sense should go in and revive the company and work with Linux and Open Source communities.
Slashdot is read by zillions of people who can not only sell their SCO, but also advise others to do so.
Are there actually any die-hard /. readers holding the stock? I think not, except possibly speculators who put $1000 in and are hoping for a lottery payout, but can afford to write off the loss if SCO dies. As far as advising people who hold SCO stock, if you hold stock it's in your best interests to follow it rather than rely on /.ers to call you up.
"d00d, dr0p ur sc0 st0ck!"
Slashdot is also read by all kinds of mainstream journalists who might not otherwise notice what SCO is up to. One could argue it's been a damned effective campaign so far. Were it not for /. clearing up the FUD, their stock would probably still be flying high on rampant speculation.
Hm. Slashdot has some good information, but a savvy reader looks to it as a starting point, not the endpoint of seeking information.
Re:SELL SHORT? (Score:2, Interesting)
You gotta figure if they lose, the price will drop well under $1. If they win, it could rise to $100. If you work out the figures you've got a winning bet (assuming your perception of the odds is correct, which is a big assumption).
I personally shorted at $15, again at $10, and again at $8. I have only covered about 5% of what I shorted. I am tempted to short even more, but I feel like the potential gain is too small ($3 and change per share) to risk losing so much (as much as $100 per share, maybe more, maybe less).
Slap a $20 down? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm serious. Would this be the vehicle by which someone Pro-Linux could acquire what actual rights SCO had, then choose to release them into the GPL for certain, as well as formally acknowledge that the debated rights had also been GPL'ed?
In short, buy Darl out like he wanted but not at the price he wanted? Then turn what's left of the company into something useful?
Re:We're about to find out the dirt on Darl (Score:3, Interesting)
The hope (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this is highly reasonable. Despite their supposed status as "investors" The Canopy Group has treated SCOX like SCOX was a puppet and they had their hand stuck up its ass. It would be hard to not consider them responsible for literally the entire SCO mess; they're a company which before SCO had repeatedly bought up near-death companies, milked them for potential lawsuit damages that the company could claim from others, then discarded the husks. They did this with Caldera. Then once SCO gets under the Canopy, suddenly the new CEO Darl McBride starts slinging strange copyright claims everywhere-- and it's becoming increasingly clear as SCO admits in court again and again that the "evidence" they purported at the start of the mess never existed that these claims were fraud from the beginning, and everyone involved at the time knew this. How could The Canopy Group be considered not to have directly engineered this?
Meanwhile the manners in which both SCOX's boardmembers and The Canopy Group have benefitted from SCOX's death spiral have been bizarre and incredibly poorly hidden. Right before the entire lawsuit started the SCOX board voted to issue themselves huge gobs of SCOX shares at virtually no cost, then set them all to sell once they reached a certain price-- then, funny that, started the lawsuit claims that briefly inflated the cost enough that those shares got sold. Meanwhile Canopy has done odd things such as stock transfers and "business deals" between SCOX and other Canopy holdings-- business deals that make no business sense whatsoever, what does a litigation company need with research XML technology?-- that essentially allowed them to convert SCOX stock into cash for the canopy board without directly raising anything at the SEC.
I don't know if this is realistic, it could just be wishful thinking on the part of slashdotters. I wish someone could make it clear to me whether it is. However it seems that if there's ever a situation under which corporate veil-piercing is possible, it should be this one. Corporations shouldn't be used as a shield to run around doing illegal things and then once the corporation suddenly dies say "whoops, it wasn't me, it was the corporation".
The people who made SCOX do this-- The Canopy Group and the boardmembers they installed-- clearly must have known big swaths of their claims early on were outright lies, and yet they used these claims to drive SCOX like a drunk driver behind the wheel of a bus, hurting others' businesses, costing IBM huge amounts in litigation that has gone and will go nowhere, violating the lanham act, misleading and defrauding investors and possibly even violating SEC rules, and placing SCOX into a situation where they are the target of multiple on-hold countersuits with real possibilities of damages being awarded-- and made fantastic amounts of money doing so. Once SCOX finally crashes with none of these debts or countersuits repaid, would the law really let them just walk away from this?
Re:We're about to find out the dirt on Darl (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember that some months ago there was a "Senior accounting position" open in SCO? And we, in usual /. fashion, speculated that it might be due to inability to find somebody willing to sign his/her name under the mess that was going on?
Hmmm...
Re:We're about to find out the dirt on Darl (Score:2, Interesting)
It's probably very complicated and I imagine that they are racing to do as much forensic accounting as possible to realize what's truly going on before filing the 10-K and making other appropiate financial and personnel decisions.
I do expect that the 10-K will get filed soon before they get delisted, but the other shoe is about to drop at SCO. Hang on to your butts....