How Microsoft initiated $50 million SCO deal, Mar 12, 2004

As we continue our investigation into the SCO Group of Lindon, Utah and its $50 million infusion of life from a Northern California venture capital firm (and others), we keep uncovering other thought-provoking sidebars. In fact, Wednesday evening was a particularly busy one on the SCO Group beat desk here at NewsForge. Here's a roundup:

Alarmed by a market slide that sent its stock tumbling to a 10-month low, Utah's SCO Group Inc. prepared Thursday to buy back up to 1.5 million shares.

The Lindon-based software company's board authorized managers to purchase the stock over the next 24 months after its per-share value dropped Wednesday to $9.51 on the Nasdaq exchange.

SCO Group continued to beguile Thursday, announcing a share buyback after a ninefold run-up in its stock price that reflects wagering on its multimillion-dollar legal campaign to privatize Linux.

The technology outfit said it will buy back up to 1.5 million common shares over the next 24 months, believing as it does that they are an "attractive investment opportunity" at current levels. That level was recently $9.50, down a penny from Wednesday night, but up from the $1.09 they touched in February 2003.

Red Hat Linux will send its executives on a seven-city tour to meet potential customers and educate them about the benefits of the open source operating system, the company says.

The tour will take in Tokyo, Brisbane, Sydney, Munich, London, Boston and Toronto.

Talks on intellectual property, technology roadmaps and perspectives on the future of open source will be presented by the executives who will be helped by Red Hat partners in each city. There will also be open discussion forums for attendees.

Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft have separately reached agreements with the Chinese government to offer equipment and support to help cultivate the country's software industry.

HP on Thursday signed an agreement with the Ministry of Information Industry of China to set up a Linux laboratory, as part of the country's Public Service Platform Initiative. The joint laboratory will focus on open-source software development, testing and certification to support small and medium-size Chinese businesses.

Linux is becoming a real alternative for enterprises but the risks and costs have to be considered alongside the benefits

As Linux climbs the enterprise ladder, it becomes more commercial and is moving away from the ideal of being cost- and risk-free. The biggest variables will be the spread of cost and risk, and the ratio of proprietary vs open-source software.

Online music store Napster announced this week a new cache-management technology that uses Linux , open standards and IBM services to provide its music service for universities, ISPs and businesses without impacting bandwidth or introducing security threats.

The application, dubbed "Super Peer," will use IBM eServer BladeCenter systems running Linux with IBM services to cache Napster content in on-site servers managed by Napster. The service will be made available to institutions such as Penn State University and the University of Rochester, which currently provide Napster to those on campus through agreements with the company.

The Mono project has a clear goal: to become the first-choice platform for Linux software development. Considering that Mono is an implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework, that goal might sound particularly audacious to many Linux fans.

To find out more, I attended a two day developer meeting hosted by Novell's Ximian division in Boston, MA. Led by the energetic and inimitable Miguel de Icaza, the meeting gave plenty of opportunity for mingling with the Mono developers and listening to presentations on various aspects of the project.

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