SCO's Revenue Continues to Plunge

SCO's Revenue Continues to Plunge

eWeek

April 16, 2005

In particular, as McBride told eWEEK.com [ http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1778488,00.asp ] several weeks ago, with the OpenServer 6 product code-named Legend [ http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1630146,00.asp ], "we are arresting the downward slide in product sales and revenue a bit; after all, we have been in a five-year revenue slide.

"But there is optimism from the current installed base towards the new product," McBride said.

SCO will be releasing Legend in June.

SCO resellers that eWEEK.com spoke to agreed that they are seeing customer interest from SCO OpenServer and UnixWare customers.

McBride commented that OpenServer 6 was SCO's most important launch in years.

During SCO's Tuesday teleconference, McBride again emphasized that while SCO was not backing off its court cases, it had great hopes that SCO's Unix business would revive as Legend enters the market.

Despite its recent losses, SCO claims to still have cash and cash equivalents, and available-for-sale securities were $15.5 million at Jan. 31.

The company also has $4.798 million in an escrow account. These funds have been set aside for its attorneys.

"Our net cash position after backing out the costs of litigation that have been paid and budgeted for under our agreement with our legal counsel remains steady," said Young.

"Combined with the fact the Unix business is generating cash, we believe we are in a position to continue operating our core business and see the litigation through to its conclusion," Young said.

The panel is expected to announce whether SCO will be permitted to continue to be traded on the Nasdaq in the next few days. Until then, SCO will continue to trade under the symbol SCOXE.

Young said that as SCO has now met all of Nasdaq's requirements, he hopes that the "E" will be removed from SCO's trading symbol within a few days.

McBride also accused popular legal news site Groklaw of being a front for anti-SCO parties and that its editor, Pamela Jones, isn't who she says she is.

McBride said, "if you look at the reality of the Pamela Jones situation, you have to conclude that all is not as appeared as it is in Groklaw land. We appreciate that many media sources disagree with us, but they're accountable. We think you need to know who's behind the news."

SCO's CEO would not go so far as to say Jones was working for IBM, but "we're digging into who Pam Jones is, and we're close to the bottom."

When Jones was asked about this, she replied, "As far as credibility, SCO might try to get as much as I have earned. America was founded by anonymous pamphleteers. It's an honored American tradition."

Jokingly she added, "The truth is, I'm an alien from a galaxy far, far away."

SCO's most surprising news, though, wasn't connected with its income, lawsuits, enemies or the market.

It was that SCO, according to McBride, has reviewed Sun's plans to open-source Solaris, which is based on SCO's Unix, and he found no problem with what Sun is planning to do and that it will not hurt SCO's Unix intellectual property rights.