“Caldera CEO Ransom Love continues to deny that Caldera is
close to buying SCO’s Unix operation, the bulk of SCO’s business,
but disclosed that the negotiations that Caldera has been having
with SCO are only one set in a string of merger and acquisition
discussions that the Linux start-up is currently engaged in with a
number of unidentified companies. Love said Caldera was
embarked on “an aggressive M&A strategy.”
“Love described these other M&A opportunities as ‘a queue
similar to a sales queue’ and said they involved companies whose
names were familiar and some that were not generally known.
Although he is uncertain they will all close, he called them part
of a larger strategy that Caldera, regarded as the weakest of the
four commercial Linux distributions, was executing towards.
Apparently they represent infrastructure and technology that would
strengthen Caldera’s position in specialized Linux servers and
Internet access devices. Caldera has previously indicated it would
go on the acquisition trail.
“Love indicated that the talks between Caldera and SCO, which
third parties claim have been going on for some time, heated up
again over the weekend but Love said this morning that there was
‘no definitive agreement and no probability of one at this time.
Things are deteriorating rapidly,’ he said. Otherwise he expressed
himself uncertain about what would ultimately happen.”