Novell: SCO Trial Should Continue to Resolve $26 Million Matter

In a statement to BetaNews this afternoon, Novell public relations director Bruce Lowry said there may be more for a Utah court to determine than just the $800,000 in SVRX software licensing royalties that both sides agree SCO owes Novell, as part of their original asset purchase agreement.

"There is still a dispute over the SCOsource licenses SCO issues to Microsoft and Sun in 2003," Lowry told us, "which totaled some $26 million between them. The District Court judge [Dale Kimball] ruled earlier that a portion of that money belongs to Novell. What exactly that amount was something the District Court was going to consider in the trial that got postponed due to SCO's bankruptcy filing."

Last week, Novell filed a motion with that Utah court to have it lift the postponement of its trial with SCO, which had been stayed on account of SCO's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That motion appears to give SCO a way to bow out of what could become an even more terrible mess, even if it's a little costly.

BetaNews asked Lowry, is it really Novell's intention to give SCO incentive to end this matter on the way to a more amicable reorganization...rather than to deliver some kind of "death blow" to that company, as some have suggested?

"Our primary motivation in this is to protect our interests," Lowry responded. "The language in the motion makes the point that any SCO reorganization has to be done on the basis of a true assessment of what SCO assets are, and that we believe allowing the District Court case to proceed will help define those assets accurately. The court case to determine the apportionment of SCOSource revenues between Novell and SCO was slated to begin the Monday following the Friday that SCO filed its bankruptcy filing. We are simply asking the bankruptcy court to allow that case to proceed."