SCO Linux licence sales dry up

The SCO Group's attempt to persuade Linux users to buy its licences managed to rake in just $11,000 during its last financial quarter, compared with $8.25m in the second quarter of its 2003 financial year.

SCO president and chief executive Darl McBride said that the company's SCOSource division had generated revenue from "just a few small licensing deals worth $11,000".

Overall SCO reported revenues of $10.1m for the quarter ended 30 April 2004, down 50 per cent from $21.3m during the comparable period of the previous year.

Revenue for the first two quarters of fiscal 2004 was $21.5m, compared to revenue for the first two quarters of fiscal 2003 of $34.9m.

But SCO insisted that it will continue its controversial legal battles with IBM, Novell, Red Hat and Daimler Chrysler over the Linux operating system.

Bert Young, the company's chief financial officer, said: "Our cash position is sufficient to fund lawsuits for several years to come."

McBride blamed the spreading of fear, uncertainty and doubt by the companies it is battling in the courts for stopping its licensing programme from taking off.

"The claims from Novell about what Unix copyrights they had sold or not sold raised questions in the minds of our customers. We did not cause this problem," he said.