It was then that one of the online gumshoes scored his biggest coup: Raymond was leaked a memo from an SCO consultant suggesting that Microsoft was behind those investments, and more.

"Microsoft will have brought in $86 million for us including BayStar," wrote Michael Anderer to SCO Vice President Christopher Sontag in an e-mail dated Oct. 12. "Microsoft also indicated there was a lot more money out there and they would clearly rather use BayStar 'like' entities to help us get significantly more money if we want to grow further or do acquisitions."

Responding to the clamor, SCO said the e-mail was authentic, but that Anderer had gotten many details wrong, including Microsoft's involvement. Like Microsoft, McBride said there is no connection between the two beyond the licensing deal.

McBride said he thinks Anderer, who worked with him at a previous company, was trying to inflate the size of deals he brought to the company.

"We hired him as a consultant to help put together some licensing deals with Microsoft, which he did," McBride said. "Consultants have fee arrangements, and . . . the more dollars they can attribute to something they are doing, then obviously the bigger their fee would be."

From his home office, Anderer said he could not discuss the issue because of a nondisclosure agreement with SCO. He said he was disappointed when he heard McBride's response to the memo.

BayStar, meanwhile, said it was introduced to SCO by Microsoft officials.

"I would not have known about the existence of SCO, but for the introduction by Microsoft," BayStar President Lawrence Goldfarb said in an interview.

SCO officials say the introduction was made by a former Microsoft employee, but Goldfarb said he was approached by two current, senior Microsoft executives whom he did not name except to say they were not Chairman Bill Gates or chief executive Steven A. Ballmer.

Goldfarb added that Microsoft's involvement stopped at the introduction, and that Microsoft is not an investor in BayStar.

"We're a pure financial animal," Goldfarb said of the venture capital firm. The terms of the investment deal were attractive, he said, with BayStar purchasing $20 million worth of preferred shares that paid an ongoing dividend. The firm mitigates its risk by shorting the common stock of the company it is investing in.

Goldfarb said BayStar researched SCO's legal claims before investing and believes they have merit, giving the BayStar investment potentially high returns.