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SCO's Return From The Dead Continues

Bloodied (or maybe bloodless would be a better word) but unbowed, the apparently unkillable SCO has taken the next step out of the bankruptcy grave toward something like a renewed existence.  Ugh.

The new business plan, according to one of the filings, seems to be threefold: 1) appeal against the Novell decision (which means SCO owes Novell something to the tune of $37 million), 2) expand into mobile computing, especially in places like the Middle East and Africa, and 3) do something, although it's not clear what, with the server business.

The way SNCP, SCO's new investor, is handling things ought to prove interesting.  It has plans to pick up the whole roster of SCO's assets for $5 million -- and the remaining $95 million investment money is going to be loaned to the company over 5 years at 17% interest.  That would place a lot of pressure on SCO to get its business together, fast, and start generating revenue.  Good luck with that. (More details in its recent filing.)

It should be deadly obvious to anyone by now that no one who has any experience with SCO's history as a company, or its software, will want anything to do with them.  On the plus side, Darl McBride -- one of the key instigators of SCO's if-it-moves-sue-it business model -- has been would be shown the door under this plan, so maybe (maybe) SCO's change of direction will be to its benefit in the long run.

I'm not holding my breath, however.  If SCO's plan for the mobile market is a proprietary mobile OS or something along those lines, it's going to face stiff competition not only from existing proprietary players but from open solutions -- e.g., Google's Android, which despite still being under wraps is showing a lot of promise.  I'd sooner throw $100 million at an open source startup working out of someone's basement than a husk like SCO.

[Note: Edited to reflect that these are plans, not done deals.]

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