08.13.07
SCO’s Stock Drops Like a Rock, Novell Gains
The market opened after a long week of misery for SCO. There is also a public statement. Here is the reaction from Groklaw.
“It’s just a flesh wound.” [says SCO] Here’s what I think they should say: “Sorry, everybody, that we caused so much trouble by claiming we owned copyrights we had every reason to know we didn’t own. Our bad. And sorry about all the shills. And sorry about that slander thing. And if your company lost business or your reputation was damaged, we are truly sorry. And I guess what SCO wants, it doesn’t get after all.” Oh, and check the ruling to note where SCO’s version diverges from what the judge wrote.
If you watch the stock now, you’ll find that it sank below 50 cents. Down to 0.44 dollar, or -1.12 (-71.79%). On the other hand, Novell stock rose.
Shares of Novell advanced 29 cents to $6.71 as of about about noon in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Another interesting observation to make is this:
SCO never owned UNIX copyrights, owes Novell 95 percent of UNIX royalties
[…]
According to Judge Kimball’s ruling, Microsoft paid SCO approximately $16 million for license rights and Sun paid approximately $10 million.
It remains to be seen what Novell does with this ownership in the future. There are some discouraging thoughts too.
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.