How to Succeed in the Software Business (Part 1)

Recorded live at the Coconut Grove in Santa Cruz, CA on Saturday, April 17, 1993. This year was the first attempt to do a coherent show with a recognizable plot rather than writing a connective thread to accommodate a series of disjointed bits.

Job applicant Grace Hopper joins the company via social engineering. With the help of a book on the software business, Grace hopscotches across the SCO org chart with stints in Manufacturing, Support, Engineeering, Sales, and Marketing. Meanwhile, VP and co-founder Doug Michels is rescued from a car crash and imprisoned by a deranged ex-SCO employee named Annie Wilkes. (The late Bruce Steinberg has a cameo in this video as Doug's colleague and confidant.) Grace is ultimately made CEO, but turns it down for a better job.

This show includes the infamous "Die Hard" video by Follies action director Peter Rosencrantz. In the current climate, it's hard to picture a CEO giving permission for employees to parade through the building carrying automatic weapons, let alone appearing in the video himself. But Swedish-born Lars Turndal sat for an hour with guns trained on him by some wacky Americans as if he'd been doing it all his life.

From 1985-2001, the Santa Cruz Operation hosted a Solstice party featuring a live musical show known as "The SCO Follies." This was a fully scripted and produced satire skewering SCO management and the high-tech industry in general. It featured live action, musical numbers and videos. Planning for each show began in November of the previous year, with writing and production continuing into March for an April show date.

A complete list of Follies shows can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=motibloc

Category:

Entertainment

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• SCO
• Follies