Is SCO's future 'all' up to judge?, Jan 25, 2007

The fate of the SCO Group's Linux-related lawsuits, as well as the Lindon software company's very future, could ride on how a federal judge interprets the word "all."

Novell on Monday reiterated support for unfettered Linux development - even as analysts hailed its controversial co-development pact with Microsoft, the freely distributed operating system's archrival.

After nearly seven years of false starts, revisions and delays, Windows Vista makes its much-anticipated public retail debut Jan. 30.

Novell Inc. says an ongoing review of how the company grants stock options has forced it to indefinitely delay releasing final earnings results for fiscal 2006.

The SCO Group's struggle to keep its Linux-related lawsuits against IBM and Novell viable on Monday faced increasingly dismal prospects.

A federal judge on Thursday gutted SCO Group's $5 billion, Linux-related lawsuit against IBM - renewing debate about the Utah company's future.

Novell Inc. on Tuesday reported increased profits for its third quarter, with earnings from its key Linux products jumping 30 percent since this time last year.

After a sustained slide fed by sustained poor earnings results and courthouse reversals, SCO shares closed Tuesday at $2.28 per share.

Linux Networx may be based in Bluffdale, but the supercomputer maker has its eyes on the stars.

Utah's SCO Group - eager to show it has more going on than its big-ticket, Linux-related lawsuits - on Monday unveiled a family of applications and services targeting the burgeoning mobile communications markets.

After nearly a decade of slowly building a top-notch reputation for technological innovation, Utah's Linux Networx is laying claim to the supercomputing big time.

Utah's SCO Group finished its fiscal year deep in the red, but with high expectations for its revamped Unix products and new applications in the coming year.

A week after cutting jobs and operations to better focus on its SuSE Linux line, Novell has lost one of the founders of its flagship operating system product.

Novell Inc., its management already under fire because of dramatically declining profits, was reluctant to discuss mounting reports Monday that deep payroll cuts are on the horizon.

Take Novell's SuSE Linux 9.3 Pro for a spin, and you, too, may find an elegant, fast, flexible and impressively stable alternative to Microsoft's long-dominant Windows.

Information technology professionals identify indemnification of "open source" products, such as the freely distributed Linux operating system, as a primary and growing concern, according to a new survey of 200 United States-based IT professionals.

"Linux Networx . . . not only has evolved [as a successful business], but is itself driving the evolution of supercomputers," Ewald says. He praises the company's "clustering" approach to using numerous, linked processors to boost computing efficiency and power rather than more costly giant processors.

Utah's SCO Group, claiming it can show IBM copied 200,000 lines of its Unix code into the freely distributed Linux operating system, wants a federal judge to amend its lawsuit a third time.

But Linux must go a long way before becoming more than a persistent mosquito tapping the veins of the elephantine Microsoft. Some 90 percent of PCs still run Windows. Even in the server-based market, Linux's hopes for a 15 percent market share within three years would be small compared with Windows' 40 percent share.

The SCO Group, already awaiting the outcome of its delisting appeal for not filing its fiscal 2004 earnings, now has been told its failure to file a first-quarter report also could deny it a slot on the Nasdaq Stock Market.