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SCO's McBride Facing The Exit
By David A. Utter
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2008-03-05
Bankruptcy and the subsequent reorganization at SCO will mean the end of the CEO run for Darl McBride.
SCO famously battled IBM and Novell in court over intellectual property in Linux, and suffered losses along with the enmity of thousands of techies who watched from the sidelines as SCO refused repeated requests to identify what parts of Linux they considered infringement.
When SCO reemerges in August, the Salt Lake Tribune said it will be with a new chief executive and a new board of directors. SCO's court failings put it into a situation where many expected the company to fade away, unlamented, into history.
An infusion of cash from Stephen Norris Capital Partners and from unnamed Middle Easter investors could make as much as $100 million available to the reorganized SCO going forward from this summer.
Despite the widely criticized course of action engaged upon by McBride in suing IBM and Novell, the soon-to-be ex-CEO seems unrepentant about his litigation strategy for SCO, according to the Tribune:
"Clearly when we draw up a battle plan for what we've been working for the last several years, trying to get SCO's intellectual property rights fought through in the courts and the marketplace, the endgame didn't have this sort of outcome for me personally," McBride said in an interview.
SCO submitted a reorganization plan with the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, as part of the path to getting back to business. Provisions of the plan include repayments of approved creditor claims, claims subject to pending litigation, and distributions to equity holders, SCO said in a statement.
The company will try to build upon its existing userbase of SCO OpenServer customers to regain its business. That will be a tough prospect, with Linux still present in the marketplace, not to mention Sun's open sourcing of Solaris, and the presence of freely available BSD-based products for Unix administrators to consider for their needs.
About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
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