For years, its all been about what The SCO Group could discover about IBM, Linux and Unix. The shoes on the other foot now, as the U.S. District Court in Utah has revealed that IBM has launched discovery motions against Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and BayStar Capital.
In general, IBM is looking for detailed information about each companys recent dealings with SCO. This includes their financial relationships, and any access or use of Unix source code by their programmers.
During March, each of the companies must appear in the District Court to give depositions on their SCO business relationships. All four have had close partnerships with SCO in the last few years.
In the summer of 2003, Microsoft started buying what would amount to approximately $16.6 million worth of SCOs Unix licenses. Although a Microsoft spokesperson claimed at the time, “There is absolutely no correlation between the IBM suit and our IP license with SCO,” many people saw this as proof that Microsoft was bankrolling SCOs lawsuit in an attempt to stall Linuxs growth.
That October, BayStar Capital put together a $50 million investment in SCO. Rumors quickly spread that Microsoft had been behind this investment. Both companies denied this story. However, a leaked memo showed that there was a connection between the companies, and in March 2004 BayStar finally confessed that Microsoft had midwifed its SCO investment.
/zimages/1/28571.gifRead the full story on Linux-Watch.com: IBM vs. SCO: Now Its IBMs Turn