IBM's Memo in Support of its Motion for SJ on SCO's Interference Claims
,----[ Quote ]
| BayStar, Goldfarb testifies, dumped SCO because its stock price,
| financial performance and the viability of its UNIX products
| all appeared to be in decline, and he "was also very concerned
| about SCO's high cash burn rate." Pure financial animals get
| nervous when that happens. But the kicker was he began to
| realize that Microsoft, whose senior VP of corporate
| development and strategy had promised that Microsoft would in
| some way guarantee the SCO investment, started showing signs
| it might not do that after all:
|
| "Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment
| structures wherein Microsoft would 'backstop,' or guarantee in
| some way, BayStar's investment.... Microsoft assured me that
| it would in some way guarantee BayStar's investment in SCO."
|
| Let me interrupt my narrative to quickly ask, Why ever would
| Microsoft guarantee BayStar's investment in SCO? What would be
| the business purpose here? What would Microsoft's benefit or
| payback be? What were they hoping for as the return on the
| investment? And why didn't they wish to invest directly? Pray
| do explain. Joke. Joke. Anyhow, after the investment was
| made, Goldfarb says, "Microsoft stopped returning my phone
| calls and emails, and to the best of my knowledge, Mr.
| Emerson was fired from Microsoft."
|
| Ah! The well-known Microsoft 180. Kiss kiss, let's do a
| deal. Drop dead.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2006100801442692
Also see:
,----[ Quote ]
| "There you have it. At least a third of SCO's entire market
| capitalization, and their entire current cash reserves, is payoffs
| funnelled from Microsoft. Their 10Qs reveal that every other line of
| cash inflow is statistical noise by comparison. The brave new
| SCO source business model is now clear: sue your customers, shill
| for Microsoft, kite your stock, and pray you stay out of jail."
`----
http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween10.html
For that alone, every Microsoft apologist should be ashamed of him/herself.
|
|
