SCO Reports Q1 Loss

The SCO Group Inc. reported a first-quarter net loss of $2.25 million, or 16 cents per share, after paying preferred dividends, compared with a loss of $724,000, or 6 cents per share, a year ago. In addition, revenue for the quarter, ending Jan. 31, fell from $13.5 million to $11.4 million.

SCOs gross revenue for the quarter that ended Jan. 31, 2004 was $11,392,000. In the prior years comparable quarter, the company generated revenue of $13,540,000.

Robert Bench, SCOs CFO, says that revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2004 was in line with the companys expectations, and was comprised of $11,372,000 from UNIX products and services and $20,000 from SCOsource initiatives. On the other hand, Bench mentioned SCO spent $3.4 million in legal fees related to the SCOsource initative.

Bench also said that SCOsource would gain momentum in future quarters, though he admitted the difficulty in predicitng exactly how these revenues will pan out.

In a teleconference, SCO CEO Darl McBride said that the recent deal with EV1Servers.Net, the first company to publicly admit that it had signed a deal with SCO, was a major one and that a handful of other companies, more than ten and less than fifty, have signed SCOsource deals. Bench said that while the financial details of the EV1Servers deal could not be revealed, the revenue from it would be coming over several quarters.

McBride also made a point of mentioning the good work that the companys Unix divisions have been doing, adding that SCO had actually signed several new Unix deals.

The market though was unimpressed by SCOs financials today. As of 2:20 p.m. EST, SCOs stock on the NASDAQ had dropped 12.51 percent on more than double normal volume. In related news, SCO announced it was suing Linux end-user companies AutoZone Inc. and DaimlerChrysler AG.

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