SCO's $1bn lawsuit against IBM over its use of the SCO-licensed Unix code could be an attempt by SCO to get IBM to buy it out, according to analyst Ovum.

Gary Barnett, principal analyst at Ovum, said that if SCO had a strong case, IBM might consider it better to buy SCO than to spend millions in legal fees.

But SCO may do itself serious harm if it does not win the case.

"It sounds like the most effective way of getting IBM's attention that [SCO] would like to be bought," said Barnett. "[But] it's a drowning not waving action."

The suit has also upset UnitedLinux partner SuSE, prompting the company to declare that it is reconsidering its relationship with SCO.

Joseph Eckert, vice president of corporate communications at SuSE, said in a statement: "We were greatly disappointed to learn of the SCO Group's recent actions."

He suggested that the move could harm the Linux community and that SuSE is "currently re-evaluating its relationship with the SCO Group".

Answering questions following the lawsuit announcement, SCO chief executive Darl McBride tried to reassure the Unix and Linux communities by insisting that the lawsuit would only affect IBM.

"IBM has one of the top three Unix places, but it is scuppering Unix to build up Linux. It is taking its core AIX expertise and moving it into Linux. AIX code was donated to the open source community," he said.

McBride claimed that SCO had tried to settle with IBM back in December, but had reached an impasse. He would not be more specific. "The details will be played out by the attorneys in a legal setting," he said.

But despite SCO's reassurances, it is possible that a legal requirement to remove the offending code could have a serious impact on one or more Linux implementations.

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