Show SATURDAY Rl JlfKT SFRIOUS CHARGF ARAINT FYFN nm i'Ivvi " — iiviuiiui kfiLVw IVuULISUUI Vyco trial D11 Tnwn k D11 Utah Business D11 rro A MAEltkET Indicators NASDAQ Business Glance Dilbert D12 D13 IlieSull iAikrTrilmne CLOSE: 1059555 204763 A leaked memo appears to connect Microsoft to $86 million in funding for SCO Group a Utah com- S&P500 NYSE CLOSE: CLOSE: 678003 115687 Utah's Top Performers The Bloomberg Utah Index if tw f i""'r"i"iiT ? r measures the stock performance of the state's CLOSE: major publicly held companies 31760 ANALYSIS pany waging a controversial battle for rights to the freely distributed Linux operating system However SCO officials dismissed the missive claiming its author had misinterpreted a venture capital deal with BayStar Capital and others as being shepherded by Microsoft Linux is seen as a competitor to Microsoft's dominant Windows OS The "open source" community a network of Linux proponents long has speculated SCO's yearlong battle over Linux has occurred at Microsoft's behest SCO which owns Unix and claims code from that program was misappropriated in the latest versions of Linux has steadfastly rejected such claims It did so again in downplaying the memo which spread rapidly Friday on the Internet "The was simply a misunderstanding of the facts by an outside consultant" SCO spokesman Blake Stowell stated The consultant "was told at the time of his Disappointing job growth figures left stocks mixed after a volatile session Friday with investors guessing whether the underlying economy was strong enough to warrant current share prices But perhaps the biggest news of the day was Martha Stewart misunderstanding" he added "Contrary to the open-sourcer- end-user- 1- today" Microsoft insisted its only financial relationship with SCO has been to license products "Microsoft has purchased a license to SCO's intellectual property to ensure interoperability and legal indemnification for our customers" spokesman Mark Martin said Friday "The details of this agreement have been widely reported and this is the only financial relationship Microsoft has with SCO" he added "In addition Microsoft has no direct or indirect financial relationship with BayStar" Unix-relate- ! ates a plant V0Tf$ Power plant gets OK i t t Currant Creek: Opposition doesn't persuade the PSC to turn down PacifiCorp's plan d to build a natural facility near Ncphi gas-fire- low Bv Bob Mims Vie Suit hike Trilmnt cs 1 1 Rebuffing critics the Utah Public Service Commission on Friday approved PacifiCorp's plans to build a controversial $TT)0 million natural gas-- f red power plant north ofNephi The decision barring a successful apiieal to the Utah Supreme Court clears the way for construction of the Currant Creek' facility which PacifiCorp subsidiary Utah Power had argued is crucial to avoiding rolling blackouts this summer "This allows us to move forward once we clear some routine processing on air quality permitting" Utah Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen said "As soon as we have approval from the state Division of Air Quality we would hope to start this construction hopefully m IRSE d Xmission offers free access Xmission has launched a network of free wireless Internet "hot spots" at several locations in downtown Salt Lake City Park City and the Brighton ski area People with laptops personal digital assistants and cellular telephones equipped with Wi-F- i cards can access the Web by signing onto the hot spots at Salt Lake City's Main Library and adjacent Trax stop parts of Washington Square Salt Lake Roasting Co Brewvies and the Beehive Tea Room Other Xmission portals can be accessed at Park City's Treasure Mountain Inn and the Brighton Ski Resort's second and third floors and the adjacent parking lot Molly Green's Private Club and the Alpine Rose Ski School — Bob Mims Hitch in Idaho phone switch Rural Idaho telephone companies have asked the Idaho Public Utilities Commission to grant them six extra months before they must allow customers to switch phone services while retaining the same number The Federal Communications Commission has ordered that all local exchange telephone companies have number portability in place by May 24 But the federal agency also said carriers with fewer than 2 percent of the nation's subscriber lines can petition their state commission for a suspension The 16 member companies of the Idaho Telephone Association say they are pursuing a feasible way to provide number portability but that they need a system upgrade first The companies claim that waiting until the technology is complete will prevent significant costs to their customers All the companies said they would have the program in place by Nov 24 ess I £"he Associated Pr h - DOPY d bmims(asltribcom ICHIRO - ink? executive of Salt Lake City's S2 Partners to SCO Vice President Chris Sontag and Robert Bench the company's chief financial officer The posted on the Open Source Initiative's Web site read in part: "M icrosoft will have brought in $86 million for us including BayStar" In his commentary attached to the memo Raymond declared "This is the smoking gun We now know that Microsoft raised $86 million for SCO but according to the SCO conference call on Wednesday their cash reserves were $685 million If not for Microsoft SCO would be at least $15 million in debt for Nurses ' "4 : - spec- ulation of open source leader Eric Raymond and others Microsoft did not orchestrate or participate in the BayStar transaction" s SCO has enraged beginning with its March 2003 federal lawsuit against IBM seeking up to $50 billion in damages over Big Blue's alleged distribution of Unix code within Linux products SCO also has sought Linux licenses from corporate s worldwide and recently sued two of them — AutoZone and Daimler-Chrysle- r Of the $86 million raised for SCO last year BayStar reportedly contributed $50 million SCO did not challenge the authenticity of the memo sent Oct 12 by Michael Anderer chief v Nucor shares tumble after speculation on steel supply Shares of Nucor Corp which operin Box Elder County fell 46 percent Friday after a Prudential Securities Inc analyst cut his rating on the stock saying rising scrap metal prices and steel supply could hurt sales and profit Analyst John Tumazos lowered Nucor to "neutral" from "overweight" and dropped his price target to $65 from $88 The shares fell $295 to close at $6190 Friday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading after sinking to $5735 earlier The daily steel supply is expected to rise to 10 percent above the 2003 average of 317000 tons easing shortages because of an increase in imports and high production Tumazos wrote in a report Scrap prices should rise by $20 this month from February he wrote Scrap steel harvested from junk yards and demolished buildings is Nucor's primary raw material Nucor has Charlotte NC-basehad to pay more for scrap as demand from China and prospects for eco nomic recovery in the United States have pushed prices to record levels The company's average scrap cost rose 25 percent per ton last year to $137 and shot up to an average of $155 in the fourth quarter Nucor recycles more than 13 million tons of scrap steel a year —Bloomberg News Memo suggests software giant is aiding lawsuit for rights to linux system Seeking Support 'A o fOn By Bob Mims CLOSE: D9 t AMlOTSOirit'9 SCO VESTERDATS Jones 1 vwaittrttcsia Your Money Dow k ML l March ( 2004 i (ilk Skdk Ric ': t k Kcan7V'uA Ijikr Trilmm Nurses seeking union and other backers hold signs asking for support on 100 South in front of Salt Lake Regional Hospital In Salt Lake City Picketers are asking for the hospital's owner lasis to drop its appeal of the May 2002 nurses union election vote City lips prompted to change promos Top women's magazine says it did not rate the gloss No 1 — contrary to claims in the lip product ads Plumped-u- p: By Bob Mims Vu Salt iMkeTribum A Salt Lake City company has toned down promotion of its "lip plumping" treatment after Good Housekeeping magazine complained its review of the product had been overstated On its Web site and in a Tuesday news release City Lips said its collagen-baseglossing product sold in d retail stores of the Swedish cosmetthe ics giant KICKS was "rated No 1 lip plumping treatment" by Good Housekeeping's February edition The Web site and promotional materials also contained reproductions of the magazine's cover and logo City Lips has scored positive exposure in the Swedish magazine Amelia on television's "Good Morning America" and in other beauty publications However in quoting Good Housekeeping's article spokeswoman Jessica Kleiman says the company went a bit too far "What they have in the press release is accurate in that the product was 65 Matthew Fordahl 'flu: AKHtdiiled Pma SAN JOSE Calif — Two years ago computer chip designer Rambus Inc appeared to be losing a multifront war: A deal to use its PCs soured its tactechnology in Intel-basetics sparked a federal antitrust complaint and ' it faced a multitude of lawsuits Now the company's fortunes seem to be turning as a tale of intrigue unfolds in the business of the memory chips used in everything from desktop comt puters to video game consoles The reversal came when an administrative' law judge last month dismissed Federal Trade' Commission antitrust charges against Rambus The company had claimed all along that chip makers rather than being victims of Rambus had actually colluded to keep its " technology off the market d rough-and-tumbl- e Stone & Webster of Baton Rouge La has already begun site preparation Eskelsen said The ruling has Currant Creek opponent Spring Canyon Energy which claimed to have submitted a better bid for a project considering its next move "I disagree with the finding" Spring Canyon attorney Stephen Mecham said "There was ample evidence on the record to show that there was at least a question whether the Currant Creek plan is the least expensive alternative" Dozens of companies provided reviewed by us" she said "But they do not have the Good Housekeeping seal We want to make sure that is clear" Since 1909 the magazine's official seal has been a cherished source of special product endorsement It carries with it a guarantee that if the product proves to be defective within two years of purchase Good Housekeeping itself will replace the product or provide a refund Contacted Friday City Lips President Marie Taylor complained that "Good Housekeeping never contacted us about this" but indicated she would call the magazine herself Kleiman later See CITY UPS Ull FTC decision in favor of Rambus now puts chip makers on defensive By month" The contractor for the project Rambus which licenses technology that spedds up computer memory says the decision not only clears its name but also would be helpful should it decide to launch its own antitrust suits against chip makers Such a development would not be surprising given that leading memory chip companies are facing price-fixinprobes by the US Justice Department and the European Union ' It is an ironic twist since the original FTC probe targeting Rambus started with chip maker complaints that Rambus was competing unfairly "When the full story is written this may be one of the classic tactical mistakes of recent legal history" said John Danforth Rambus' genera counsel The tangled web of litigation and investigations involves the important but unsung $16 billion business of dynamic random access SwFTCDlO power-generatio- Sw- - CURRANT CREEK prc3 tenets RAM Price-fixi- ng n Dll producers After Intel's 2001 announcement that new processors would support dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips other than those designed by Rambus Inc market prices jumped leading to an antitrust investigation of major manufacturers Weekly market price of PC-13- 3 r Intel announces chips $g will SDRAM support an alternative to Rambus Inc 256 Megabits g ONDFMAMJJ '02 '01 RAM ASONDFMAMJ JASONDF '03 '04 manufacturing market share the top RAM producers have been contacted by the Justice Department in connection with a investigation Micron Infineon Others Hynix Samsung All four ot price-fixin- g Vmr Murhi hitrUitfnur Smitm AP |