Linux pot of gold still eluding Caldera

The company turned in revenues of $1.2m for its most recent financial quarter, up 34 per cent on the same period last year. But it made a loss of $6.9m during that time, compared with $4.5m in 1999.

Revenues for the whole year, ending October 31, stood at $4.3m, a 40 per cent increase on last year's $3.1m. The net loss for the 12 month period was $39.2m, compared with $9.4m for the previous year.

According to Gary Cooper, analyst at the Butler Group, Caldera's decline is likely to continue unless it can capitalise on its recent deal to acquire parts of SCO's operations.

He said: "Its acquisition of SCO's server software and professional services divisions is the only way forward for the company".

Tony Lock, analyst with Bloor Research, added: "The SCO brand is rock solid - Caldera does have a future."

Ransom Love, president and CEO of Caldera, said in a statement: "As we continue to focus our efforts on the successful integration with the two SCO divisions, we expect tremendous synergies to emerge from Linux and Unix technologies."

But Caldera will have to move fast to compete with pure-play Linux outfits like Red Hat and TurboLinux, and with the likes of IBM increasing their open source offerings.