232 Why did Caldera buy the Santa Cruz Unix Assets? << Prev Next >>
by: ColonelZen	IP: 242.208	rated: 0-0	posted: 2006-12-11 23:28:51
First and foremost let me state up front that I *know* nothing of the thinking of any insiders. What I know is only cobwebbed gleanings from articles and message boards many, many years back combined with the public information that has been divulged and discussed on the many message boards about the SCOX lawsuits. That said, the following discussion where it touches upon motivations is purely my private and admittedly uninformed speculation.     For a real Linux company, the purchase of the Santa Cruz Unix base would have been a genuine coup. SCO still had a large installed base. We techies might have known that Openserver was lackluster in performance and a technological fossil doomed by cheaper more modern developments, but the customers of SCO (Santa Cruz, I will use "SCOX" when referring to "The SCO Group", Caldera International's nom de guerre) were almost by definition not interested in technology for its own sake. For most of the installed base, it did what the customer wanted.     Santa Cruz's customers were fairly satisfied with what they had, but their software suppliers were not. From my own experience I know that what was eating away at the Openserver and Unixware base was not dissatisfaction with the operating system, but that ever fewer software vendors were developing and supporting packages for it. The vendors recognized that Linux was the future and were directing their resources accordingly. Remember this was before the lawsuits; there was no animosity towards Santa Cruz as such, just a saddened disdain and a universal understanding that the future lay elsewhere.     With enough capital and technical prowess a Linux company could have swallowed that installed base almost whole and made money both in consulting and providing migration tools and packages to assist those companies one by one as they felt the need to migrate. Add a little more capital and some marketing savvy to partner with a few software providers to build compatible Linux ports for key programs in a manner to make migration easier, and the coup would be complete.     But Caldera International rather obviously did not have the capital to implement this strategy. So the question of "why" remains.     My short, and rather flip (but I suspect accurate) answer is "Yarro wanted to get into IBM's pockets".     This is not necessarily nefarious. There were several instances through the nineties of IBM giving SCO what might be considered "life support". Monterey was simply the last and most visible - visible particularly because SCO was so clearly little man at the table, and there on sufferance and charity. I suspect that Yarro expected to negotiate an extension of Monterey or a new "treaty" with IBM to underwrite the above scenario. In short Yarro expected to inherit the good will of IBM from SCO.     Now for a little speculation. Not all good will is altruism. Most of it is just self interest in another guise. Long before there was a Caldera, Microsoft had a version of Unix for the x86 architecture. It didn't do very well so after a while Microsoft sold it off ... to Santa Cruz. But in and among the hereafters and wherefores was a little gem. An agreement that Microsoft would not compete in Unix space.     Now I don't *know* that the non-compete lasted through the nineties... but it surely explains IBM's evident desire to keep Santa Cruz alive through some intercourse which otherwise looked about as implausible as Donald Trump dating Laura Didio.     And I don't know that if it was still in effect that a change-of-control event vacated it. But such self terminating covenants are common in such instances. But such would surely explain why after being protective of SCO for years, IBM suddenly turned a cold shoulder, even to sending an almost immediate notice of termination of the Monterey agreement.     My guess is that Yarro did not know of the MS non-compete, and that he quite possibly thought SCO did have title to the SysV copyrights and that that accounted for IBM's friendliness towards Santa Cruz. And he was immediately outraged to be discarded and disregarded without ceremony. It explains some of his vitriol.     Certainly Yarro's character is now writ plain and it was obviously for IBM's best not to become involved with him, especially in a prolonged relationship. But the question remains did IBM not deal with Yarro because of some awareness of his background and character, or simply and coldly because they had no further use for what was once SCO?     Likewise did Yarro buy the Santa Cruz Unix assets to capitalize and grow them as outlined above, or was the "buy me out" extortion the plan from day one?     For that matter did Santa Cruz even know and understand why IBM consistently played protective big brother? Or did they know but not convey the realities of that genteel relationship when Caldera approached them? Whether they knew or not, of course, due diligence was Yarro's duty, and if I knew enough to write this from public sources, Yarro could have found out. (I remember explaining the Xenix non-compete to my boss when he wondered why SCO was part of Monterey) And IBM is free to choose its "friends" as it sees fit, for whatever reason.     Possibly we'll never know Yarro's state of mind in buying SCO, but some history of the timing of his relations with Anderer and McBride might tell us when and where the Linux extortion scheme arose.     -- TWZ