Microsoft and SCO: more

Some of my friends are sceptical about the charge that Microsoft is playing organ-grinder to SCO’s monkey. This is because they are innocent souls who like to give their fellow-men the benefit of the doubt. However, back in the real world, today’s NYT reports that:

“More evidence emerged yesterday about Microsoft’s role in encouraging the anti-Linux campaign being waged by the SCO Group, a small Utah company.

BayStar Capital, a private investment firm, said Microsoft suggested that it invest in SCO, which is engaged in a legal campaign against Linux, a rival to Microsoft’s Windows.

BayStar took Microsoft’s suggestion to heart and invested $50 million in SCO last October. But a spokesman for BayStar, Robert McGrath, said, “Microsoft didn’t put money in the transaction and Microsoft is not an investor in BayStar.” He added that Microsoft executives were not investors as individuals in the investment firm, which is based in San Francisco.

Mr. McGrath said the suggestion came from unidentified “senior Microsoft executives” but not Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, or Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive.”