Major Japanese firms won't pay off SCO

THE BIGGEST COMPUTER MANUFACTURERS in Japan that build systems running Linux will hold out against blustering by SCO to extract license fees based upon unsubstantiated infringement claims, it has emerged.

According to today's Nikkei Business Daily, those firms include the giants Fujitsu and NEC, with the former reported as saying it sees no reason to pay licence fees to SCO.

Indeed, the newspaper adds, Fujitsu intends to continue to expand its Linux, Unix, and mainframe offerings in the market, and has recently landed a whopping deal to use Linux for a personnel system development at a large Japanese government department, as we reported earlier.

And people at NEC, another Japanese giant, are scratching their heads wondering what the heck is going on. SCO hasn't asked it to stump up licensing fees, so NEC plans to continue its growing Linux business.

The newspaper observes that IBM will be defending itself against SCO's allegations in court, and thinks most Japanese companies will continue to follow the lead of IBM when it comes to supporting Linux systems.

It does speculate that some companies in Japan that haven't yet adopted Linux might hold off, avoiding potential trouble to wait and see. µ