Microsoft denies contacting BayStar

'The Redmond giant' said it has no guarantee of any investment in SCO in the process from the start of legal battles with IBM and other Linux users.

Microsoft has denied accusations that it has pledged to invest in The SCO Group - a software company that has an intellectual property dispute with IBM.

In 2003, at the time of the SCO conducting legal attacks against IBM and other Linux users, charged with IBM offering open source software based on source code owned by SCO, BayStar Capital. has invested $ 50 million in SCO.

Microsoft was suspected of supporting the SCO case against IBM to prevent the development of Linux, a threat to Microsoft's business. However, on October 9, 2006, a Microsoft spokesman said the company had no financial connection with BayStar and never agreed to guarantee any BayStar investment in SCO.

In its statement, Microsoft reiterated that it had a licensing agreement with SCO to support Microsoft Utilities to work well with Unix-based applications. At that time (2003), Microsoft was also suspected of signing an agreement to support SCO's legal actions but the company denied it. Many other companies (including Sun Microsystems) also have licensing agreements with SCO, which can avoid litigation.

In early 2006, a court dismissed nearly 200 SCO accusations, saying that the company did not provide enough details for accusations of violation of the invention.