SCO switches tactics

SCO has acknowledged that it is currently only targeting Fortune 1000 companies for its Linux licences.

But the company still plans to contact SMEs over licensing at a later date.

"[SCO is] a company of 330 employees with limited resources for doing outreach or handling incoming inquiries on these licences," Blake Stowell, director of public relations at SCO, told vnunet.com.

"For this reason, we have asked our sales force to limit their focus right now to the largest audience that we've had the most interaction with, that being the Fortune 1000."

But when asked why this limitation was not made plain at the outset, Stowell said: "This was a mistake on [SCO's] part."

In May, SCO sent out letters claiming that Linux was an unauthorised derivative of Unix, which SCO owned, and offered companies the option of purchasing a Linux licence.

Stowell said that "several" companies had now signed up, but declined to provide further details.

He said he was confident SCO would provide "added detail" when it discussed its fourth-quarter earnings on 5 December.

Regarding SMEs, Stowell said: "There is not one company that will face litigation if they are not given a fair chance to purchase a licence."

But James Governor, principal analyst at RedMonk, suggested that SCO's use of the word "fair" was strange.

"The company's actions on licensing do not seem to be in good faith," he said. "Despite this latest wrinkle they are still threatening everyone."

The licence price is set at $1,399 per processor, but there is an initial discount to $699, due to expire on 1 November, after recently being extended by two weeks.

Stowell did not rule out further extensions. "If we did choose to extend [it] we wouldn't announce that until 1 November," he said.

But he recommended smaller companies to contact SCO in order to "get locked in" to the lower price.

"If they wait, then there is a chance they will end up paying the higher licence price when the price goes up later on," he said.

But Governor insisted that companies should ignore this. "My advice is business as usual. Just keep deploying [Linux]," he concluded.