Darl McBride

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Darl McBride (born circa 1960) is the CEO of The SCO Group. He became the CEO of Caldera International on June 28, 2002, and during his tenure, Caldera renamed itself The SCO Group and, on March 7, 2003, initiated litigation against IBM regarding the intellectual property status of the Linux operating system. The strategy has appeared to be of limited success, and on September 14, 2007, SCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

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[edit] Education

McBride is fluent in Japanese and spent time in Japan as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[1]

[edit] Career

From 1988 to 1996, he worked at Novell, where at first he was in charge of Novell Japan and later was vice president and general manager of Novell's Embedded Systems Division (NEST). He left Novell to become senior vice president of IKON Office Solutions. IKON fired him in 1998 after his involvement in the execution of 33 business acquisitions.[2] McBride then sued Ikon for $10 million, claiming breach of contract, nonpayment of wages, and fraud. Ikon counter-sued, and the case was eventually settled. At that time, McBride was also fighting a divorce battle in court with his first wife. He was also involved in two startups: SBI and Company, a professional services company, which he founded and served as CEO, and later PointServe, a software company of which he was also CEO. He raised venture capital for both of these companies.[2] McBride was the president of Franklin Covey's online planning business from August 2, 2000 until a few months prior to his recruitment for the SCO Group.[3]

McBride became a friend of Ransom Love, CEO of Caldera. When Love left the company in 2002, McBride replaced him. He was appointed by Ralph Yarro III, who was a personal friend[citation needed] of McBride and also CEO of the Canopy Group, owners of Caldera at that time.

[edit] Linux controversy

Main article: SCO-Linux controversies

Recently, he has become notorious in the information technology industry for his strategy of claiming intellectual property rights covering all of the various UNIX operating systems developed by IBM under a license originally granted by AT&T (see SCO v. IBM Linux lawsuit). SCO and McBride's series of confusing and complex legal actions targeted at Linux have especially angered the open source, free software and Linux communities.

A close friend of his, Ty Mattingly, is said to have told him, "Congratulations. In a few short months you've dethroned Bill Gates as the most hated man in the industry."[4] He has claimed to have received death threats from convicted felons, prompting him to carry a firearm and to employ multiple bodyguards.[1]

[edit] Effect on Caldera/SCO

Although the litigation strategy initially saw a surge in lagging stock prices from under $2 on March 18, 2003 to over $20 just 6 months later, over the next four years stock value dropped to under $1. On April 27, 2007, NASDAQ served notice[5] that the company would be de-listed if SCO's stock price did not increase above $1 for a minimum of 10 consecutive days over the course of 180 business days, ending October 22, 2007.

In an August 10, 2007 district court ruling that Novell owns the copyrights to System V UNIX, SCO stock fell to just $0.44 per share, a one-day drop of more than 70%, prompting technology sector pundits to question SCO's viability, in addition to the loss of a promised source of growth and income.

On September 14, 2007, SCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection[6] , and by September 18 its share price had reached $0.18 per share.

On December 21, 2007, SCO received NASDAQ delisting notice and trading was suspended on December 27, 2007.[7] The stock price was $0.12 per share.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b SCO so despised that chief is armed. deseretnews.com (2004-03-08). Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
  2. ^ a b Stone, Brad (July 2004). The Linux Killer. Wired. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
  3. ^ Darl McBride – President and Chief Executive Officer. The SCO Group. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
  4. ^ Torode, Christina (2003-11-14). Top 25 Executives: Darl McBride, President and CEO, The SCO Group. CRN. Retrieved on 2006-11-13.
  5. ^ Jones, Pamela (2007-04-27). Nasdaq Delisting Notice. groklaw.net. Retrieved on 2007-04-27.
  6. ^ The SCO Group Files Chapter 11 to Protect Assets as It Addresses Potential Financial and Legal Challenges. The SCO Group, Inc. press release, September 14, 2007
  7. ^ SCO Receives Nasdaq Notice Letter (2007-12-27). Retrieved on 2007-12-29.

[edit] External links

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