SCO to Netherlands Distributor: 'Tough Luck!' Distributor to SCO: 'See You in Court!'

linuxworld.com ^ | 9-15-2003 | James Turner 

[Coral Snake]

In a phone conversation today with Erik Monninkhof, CFO and co-founder of Dupaco, the sole distributor of SCO product in the Netherlands, I learned that it's not just competing Linux distributions that are suffering since SCO changed management.

According to Monninkhof, Dupaco has had a relationship with SCO for 18 years. In 1986, they drove from COMDEX in Las Vegas to Santa Cruz and, for $5000, became distributors of SCO Xenix in the Netherlands. During the following years, they successfully sold SCO products, outlasting other Netherlands companies that also tried to sell SCO to eventually become the sole distributor.

To say that they were a loyal SCO vendor is an understatement. Monninkhof says that he attended every SCO Forum since then, visited Santa Cruz over 50 times, and has turned down repeated offers from other vendors to sell their Unix distributions in addition to the SCO line. And they succeeded with SCO, building a multi-million dollar revenue stream out of the SCO offerings.

[Coral Snake]

The NEW Coral Snake Ping.

It seems that Darl McBride can't get along with his own SCO affiliates and he expects to negotiate with the LINUX COMMUNITY!!!

LOON CITY!!!

[TechJunkYard]

Worse, under a marketing program started by SCO several years ago, Dupaco has been providing SCO with their leads and customer contacts, meaning that the new franchise will be primed to raid Dupaco's customer base. Dupaco had felt comfortable doing this because they had been assured by the European SCO management that SCO would never move to a direct marketing model in the Netherlands.

I think Motorola pulled this same trick on its distributors a few years ago.