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SCO could face uphill battle in drawing new customers
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August 22, 2003 (Computerworld) -- After leaving the happy confines of its SCO Forum 2003 in Las Vegas, The SCO Group Inc. this week said it's going to take its latest product road map to new customers to try and sell itself and its upcoming revamped operating system software (see story).
But that task will likely be much tougher for the Lindon, Utah-based company than building excitement among its faithful core users (see story).
"I have no intentions of ever doing business with SCO," said Chad Wilson, a computer support analyst at an Ohio-based hospital that runs Windows-equipped servers and dabbles in Linux and IBM AIX. Wilson said SCO's recent actions in its $3 billion lawsuit against IBM over its Unix intellectual property turned him off when SCO began threatening Linux users with legal action if they don't pay new $699-per-CPU licensing fees to SCO (see story). "Basically, with their tactics, they hurt their chance of getting a future customer," Wilson said.
IBM filed a countersuit against SCO earlier this month, while Linux vendor Red Hat Inc. also filed a lawsuit, charging SCO with "unfair and deceptive" attacks against Linux in the marketplace (see story).
Rafael Diaz, a systems administrator at a national children's clothing store chain, said he also opposes SCO's efforts to get businesses using Linux to pay it licensing fees. "To me, it's almost like blackmail aimed at the smaller companies that might not have the funds for a lawsuit," Diaz said. "I would never consider any products from SCO, just based on their tactics."
Meanwhile, he said, his company is continuing its plans to look at moving some of its Windows-based servers to Linux. "This whole SCO thing doesn't halt our development at all," he said. "In fact, we're looking at ways of deploying Linux desktops in some areas."
Ronald Edge, manager of information systems for Indiana University's Intercollegiate Athletics Department in Bloomington, said the SCO lawsuit and legal battles have left him unwilling to review the company's latest wares. Besides, he said, SCO's dearth of Unix development and products over the past couple of years makes it difficult to trust the company's new road map.
"Because of this lawsuit, I would never have anything to do with them as vendors," he said. "I feel a harsh, bitter Norwegian cold equivalent to hell toward SCO."
His department is a Windows shop but has also been looking at alternatives like Linux, especially after the latest Windows Blaster worm and virus issues over the past several weeks, he said. "The latest [Linux] releases are a cat's whisker away from being able to put them on my grandmother's desktop," he said.
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