M$ fund SCO case.

Typedef

realize the last negotiations are not as much fun, but Microsoft will
have brough in $86 million for us including Baystar. The next deal we
should be able to get from $16-20, but it will be brutial as it is for
go to makerket work and some licences. I know we can do this , if
everyone stays on board and still wants to do a deal. I just want to
get this deal and move away from corp dev and out into the marketing
andfield dollars....In this market we can get $3-5 million in
incremental deals and not have to go through the gauntlet which will get
tougher next week with the SR VP's.

This is the smoking gun. We now know that Microsoft raised at least $86 million for SCO, but according to the SCO conference call this morning (03 Mar 2004) their cash reserves were $68.5 million. If not for Microsoft, SCO would be at least $15 million in debt today.

The "$16 to $20" is almost certainly $16 to $20 million, and since this memo is five months old that deal is almost certainly completed by now. This means it's possible SCO has burned through as much as $30 million in just a year of barratry.

The part that starts I just want is interesting, too. It looks as though Anderer is talking about shopping for a wealthier patron group within Microsoft's corporate hierarchy; SCO has been taking money from Microsoft corp dev (probably corporate development) but the gauntlet of Microsoft's senior vice-presidents is about to make that more difficult. He thinks they can get more money from marketing and field dollars, whatever that is (later paragraphs suggest it's a different group within Microsoft)

http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween10.html


It appears SCO would be 15 millions dollars in debt, were it not for Microsoft giving them 86 million dollars, to fight an IP case against Linux.

As if we really needed confirmation that the evil empire was behind the whole thing

Trojan

Wow, they got caught pretty red-handed there! That'll shake some things up

scojones

well crap. This is bad bad news, the fact it was leaked is good.. but this is bad :mad:

Typedef

Clearly, having failed misreably to convince people that it's cheaper to run M$ software, it looks as if the evil empire through it's bitch SCO (who has admitted that the Halloween X email is true), is simply going to try to legally muscle it's competition away.

http://www.newsforge.com/trends/04/03/08/0457259.shtml

I don't fancy it's chances of that either.

SCO Group did not question the authenticity of the leaked e-mail, saying instead that the message is a "misunderstanding."

"We believe the e-mail was simply a misunderstanding of the facts by an outside consultant who was working on a specific unrelated project to the BayStar transaction, and he was told at the time of his misunderstanding," said SCO spokesman Blake Stowell. "Contrary to the speculation of Eric Raymond, Microsoft did not orchestrate or participate in the BayStar transaction."

Apparently the entire M$ + SCO IP 'suit' is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

/Laughs.

I wonder if SCO has the ball to sue the US government for it's use of Linux in a 24.5 million dollar Supercomputer?

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/04/17/1324227.shtml?tid=162

Thought not.

sceptre

There's been one thing bothering me since this whole debacle started. Microsoft (or Gates, can't remember which) used to own 20% of SCO around 1988ish according to a few webpages I read some time in 1996. When did they sell their stake?

nadir

lol, ive been pretty bored with the whole thing lately, but I must agree its funneh stuff.
I guess M$ must have figured they had nothing to lose trying this tactic. Would be good if it could be tuned back on them legally in some way.