SCO to File Lawsuit Against DaimlerChrysler Corporation, Mar 03, 2004

The SCO Group, Inc., the owner of the UNIX operating system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today announced a lawsuit to be filed against DaimlerChrysler Corporation for its alleged violations of its UNIX software agreement with SCO.

Webmaster's note: We've already posted news about AutoZone but just wanted to also post this rather coincidental news that SCO seems to be losing money

Software company SCO Group Inc., which is suing IBM and trying to extract royalties from other Linux users, reported on Wednesday a wider quarterly loss as revenue fell and costs increased.

The Lindon, Utah-based, company, which claims that Linux, the operating system that can be copied and modified freely, is based on the Unix software it owns, said its fiscal first-quarter net loss, after paying preferred dividends, was $2.25 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with a loss of $724,000, or 6 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue for the quarter, ended Jan. 31, fell to $11.4 million from $13.5 million.

SCO Group on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against auto parts retailer AutoZone, claiming the company has violated SCO's copyrights by using Linux.

SCO alleges that AutoZone "violated SCO's Unix copyrights by running versions of the Linux operating system that contain code, structure, sequence and/or organization from SCO's proprietary Unix System V code in violation of SCO's copyrights," according to a statement from the company.

The SCO Group plans to begin legal action against Linux users Tuesday--likely two separate companies--but an announcement of the names won't come until Wednesday, the company said.

The Lindon, Utah-based company plans to announce its legal target Wednesday morning, shortly before its conference call regarding its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2004, spokesman Blake Stowell said.

"We'll have at least one suit that's filed today before the end of the day," Stowell said Tuesday, with two suits more likely. "There is a high possibility we will be announcing two."

IBM Corp. plans to invest $1 billion this year to help developers create programs for specific industries, in a bid to take market share from Microsoft Corp.

IBM, the second-largest software maker, will help sell the new programs and provide companies with technical assistance, including free development tools, the Armonk, N.Y.-based company said yesterday. The software will be geared toward small to medium-size companies with fewer than 1,000 employees.

The investment steps up competition between Microsoft and IBM for small and medium-sized customers. IBM also has spent $1 billion to make its hardware and software work with the Linux operating system as a low-cost alternative to Microsoft's Windows.

Pittsburgh-based Maronda Homes now runs desktop applications on its 550 PCs with OpenOffice, Linux software downloaded off the Web from www.openoffice.org. Maronda is also using commercial server software from Red Hat on its AS/400 mid-range server to manage its networked applications. The move has saved Maronda in excess of $300,000 on annual licensing fees for Microsoft Office and server maintenance costs.

Open Source pilots in the NSW government are gathering momentum, with the Department of Commerce the latest agency to kick the tyres of desktop applications.

The Commerce pilot follows a Roads and Traffic Authority announcement last month that it was evaluating an open-source desktop productivity suite.

NSW IT and Commerce Minister John Della Bosca has been advocating the use of open source in NSW government agencies.

The global spread of free software such as Linux could erode software companies' profit margins and give computer hardware producers an edge, a top Sun Microsystems executive says.

Greg Papadopoulos, executive vice-president and chief technology officer of the company whose computers run networks and help power the Web, predicted that so-called "open-source" software development was here to stay, but he also said it was being distorted by attempts to commercialise it.

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