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Computerworld - LAS VEGAS
When The SCO Group Inc. held its SCO Forum 2004 user conference here last week, much of the focus remained on the Unix software vendor's legal battles against IBM and other Linux backers. Darl McBride, president and CEO of Lindon, Utah-based SCO, struck a defiant tone during his keynote and in a subsequent interview with Computerworld, saying that he expects his company to eventually prevail in court and win over many of its critics. Excerpts from the interview follow.
In your keynote address, you said you believe the IT community will "embrace" SCO's legal position after all the evidence in the IBM case is made public. But IT managers in general have reacted negatively since you sued IBM. Why do you think their view will change? I think that what will happen here is when the truth is on the table and people really understand what happened in the case, there will be a big swing in the public perception about this small company that got clobbered by this big bully. I'm going a year out and saying that between now and then, when the truth gets out in the public filings and people know what we know, people are going to view us in a much more positive light.

Despite the pending cases against IBM as well as Novell, AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler, major IT vendors continue to unveil Linux-based offerings, Unisys being the latest example [see story below]. Are there more lawsuits to come against additional Linux vendors or users? We came out and put our claims in front of the courts. We look forward to getting a resolution to those issues. When those issues are fully resolved, we'll go from there. We've got our hands full right now. From our perspective, we're fine to let the reservoir fill. Later on, we'll worry about the water flowing out the other side. We don't want to be spread too thinly by taking on the rest of the world [now]. It's a long-term game.

Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO

Isn't it possible, as some critics have suggested, that IBM could buy SCO in a settlement and close the company down? The notion is that SCO loses either way -- that IBM buys us, or we lose in court. We didn't go into this thing to try to go out of business. We're trying to reclaim the business that was improperly taken from us. A settlement to me would be to restore what was taken from us so thatwe can stay in business.

In June, SCO reported that Unix licensing revenue through its SCOsource division totaled just $11,000 in the quarter that ended April 30 - a 99% drop-off from $8.25 million in the same quarter last year. What happened there? In the day-to-day business, we have some speed bumps that come up from our [intellectual property] issues. In the previous quarter, we had several large licensing deals, but you can't repeat those every quarter. It's not really as brutal as people might expect.

Read more about Linux and Unix in Computerworld's Linux and Unix Topic Center.