Judge Explores Sun Challenge of Microsoft

NY Times ^ | Dec. 4, 2002 | Reuters

[APBaer]

Judge Explores Sun Challenge of Microsoft

By REUTERS BALTIMORE, Dec. 3 — A federal judge hearing Sun Microsystems' private antitrust suit against Microsoft said today that forcing Microsoft to carry Sun's Java software in the Windows operating system could be an attractive remedy.

Judge J. Frederick Motz of Federal District Court had tough questions for both companies during opening arguments, but he seemed sympathetic to the idea of letting Sun's Java compete without "the distortions of the market wrought by the violations Microsoft has done."

Microsoft dropped Java, a computer language designed to run on various operating systems, when it introduced Windows XP last year. It later reversed itself and said it would start including Java in a Windows XP update, but only until 2004.

A Microsoft lawyer, David Tulchin, pointed out to Judge Motz that a judge in the long-running government antitrust case against Microsoft had recently rejected a similar proposal to require Windows to carry Java; that request came from nine states seeking stiffer sanctions in the case. But Judge Motz said he was not bound by that ruling, made last month by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington.

Judge Motz asked Microsoft why he should not grant Sun's request that Microsoft be required to carry Java. He called that remedy "attractive."

Mr. Tulchin argued that Sun wanted a "free ride" on Windows because it was unwilling to do the hard work of having Java distributed to computer users on its own.

"The antitrust laws were not promulgated so that one competitor could take a free ride on the back of another competitor," Mr. Tulchin said.

Judge Motz asked Sun why it needed to distribute Java via Windows if it was a better product than Microsoft's .Net services, which are intended to allow various programs to interact in a consistent way over the Internet.

Sun's lawyer, Lloyd R. Day Jr., told the judge that Microsoft should be forced to distribute Java as part of Windows because Microsoft planned to use .Net to wipe out Java.

[firewalk]

bump to read later....

[Psycho_Bunny]

In a related story, A federal judge said today that forcing Toyota to use Chevrolet carburetors in their newest engines could be an attractive remedy to the growing trade deficit between Japan and the United States.......

[Ingtar]

*sniff* My competitor is distributing a runtime that means that my runtime might not get used. Make him put mine in too.

I cannot see how Microsoft is doing anything unfair in this case. To use .NET, a free runtime must be downloaded. To use Java, a free runtime must be downloaded. How is that unfair?

[Ingtar]

You poked fun at it better than I. Kudos to you.

[Psycho_Bunny]

If you are incapable of behaving as an adult and following the forum rules then don't reply to my posts.

[The_Reader_David]

The difficulty with this case is that Microsoft did not simply not include Java in XP, a perfectly legal business decision. It also promulgated a "polluted" Java which was only partially compatible with Sun's version.

The report doesn't go through all the details of Microsoft's attempts to suppress Java (a threat not to its OS monopoly but to its attempts to parley that monopoly into a strangle-hold on application development, since it's OS and platform independent).

[ImphClinton]

Good post.

I believe the judge is just trying to give Sun back what MS unlawfully took away from it.

Java used to be the hottest thing going. MS then did everything it could to destroy Java. It broke many laws in the process and did not play fair.

Java does many things that .NET does not do yet IE does. IE is included in Windows XP.

It really doesn't matter though. MS will use as many programmers as necessary to assure Java will not work with Windows. The courts seem to care less that MS abuses it's monopoly power.

[TimPatriot]

I happen to live in Massachusetts. Seems to me that the State of Massachusetts ought not to be spending taxpayer money to fight Sun Microsystems battle. I wonder what the quid pro quo has been...democrat party donations? In my view, attacking Microsoft does far more harm to the Massachusetts and national economy than puffing up Sun and its lame and slow Java. Why should Microsoft support Java, does Sun have an inalienable right have its products work on any PC? I think not. Microsoft has done far more to support Netscape and Java, not Microsoft products. None of the adversary companies that hide behind state attorney generals does anything to support Microsoft products.

[ImphClinton]

1983 Very slow computer
$2,000 System
$49.00 OS (no requirement to buy new system)

2003 Very fast computer
$599 System
$100 OS ($699 System price - see WalMart.com)
$249 OS without buying new system

See anything wrong here?

That is what a monopoly gets you. Overpriced merchandice.

Part of the slump we are is is because companies are speaking with their pocketbooks and not paying MS their extortion money. This means far fewer computers are sold than should be. Not only do you pay triple the price for your OS but many lose jobs because companies refuse to buy new computers. That new computer may cost you only $599 but a company has to go out and re-buy all new software as well. Thus MS gets another $599 for a total price of $1198.

If my state can save some of this money they darn well better do it.

[rebootd]

The cost comparison tells me that the TOTAL cost is far less today than 20 or even 10 years ago. I think its a good thing that one can get improved performance and reliability and yet a lower total cost. 1983 would have been about the time of DOS, right? Would you still want to run DOS, let alone pay $49 for it?

As for competitors to Windows: Linux, OpenBSD, BeOS, Mac OS, Solaris (SUN), and os/2. Two of which require different hardware. Two of which are free and run on the same hardware.

Microsoft stopped supporting JAVA because Sun was trying to collect significant license fees after MS already had put it out. (SUN didn't always want to give the JAVA runtime away freely.)

MS had to re-write their websites and some applications to avoid SUN's license fee pursuit.

Java's euphoric reception was a combination of Press and programmers who liked; not of actual success. It was and still is a slower programming environment. Its not at all platform independent. It requires a different implementation of the runtime for each OS. OS runtimes for JAVA can (and do) differ in slight ways that make it sometimes difficult to write a JAVA program that actually works on all OS's.

Who am I that I know this? ... let's just say I know a thing or two about computers and programming.

[IYAS9YAS]

Here's the other issue. I had Windows 95. Bought Office Professional 97 (full edition - college price) to teach myself Excel, Word, etc..., because the school I was attending taught Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordperfect with a hint of Quatro Pro. Interviewed with a few people and all asked for the Microsoft product experience. Over time, I upgrade to Windows 98 (still with Office 97 Professional).

Update 5 years later, computer getting slow, overloaded and want portability. Get new laptop. Comes with Windows XP. Find out the hard way that my Microsoft Product will not work on my Microsoft Product. Office 97 is DOS based and XP will not support it (supposedly).

Now what? Now, I have an updated system, but no way to run my legitimate and paid-for programs. To get the same thing I had for Office, I'd have to shell out over $200 (that's the upgrade price, not just the outright selling price) to get something other than MS Works (there's an oxymoron if I ever saw one). Not right. Older MS products should be able to work on newer MS systems. Period. I've paid them for it. If nothing else, I should get a huge discount if I send them the original disc for Office 97 with its supporting documentation.

[Dead Corpse]

Try running it in DOS Compatability mode. Can't say it'll run good, but then Office '97 wasn't all that stable to begin with.

[BearCub]

That is what a monopoly gets you. Overpriced merchandice.

Nice theory but it's wrong. Microsoft has no such monopoly. You can walk into any computer store and choose amongst a large handful of operating systems. Quit your whining.

[IYAS9YAS]

Thanks...didn't even know that was available...actually, since I work daily with Office...I no longer need the product on my home computer...I was just ranting over the planned obsolescence. Never had any problems with stability...of course I was using it on my home PC to learn and never really did any big work with it.

There's a real need for VBA programming within Excel and Access where I work. Never got this firsthand. Know any good books or tutorials for VBA in Excel and Access? Would greatly enhace my retainability or hireability (if'n my retainability were to be diminished).

[Dead Corpse]

Nope. Sorry. I'm more of a hardware guy. Never really got too far into VB. Anything more complicated than batch files, scripting, and html are outside of my areas of interest.

Good Luck though... :-)

[j_tull]

What problems are you having? I'm running Office '97 on 2 dozen XP desktops without difficulty.

[Yeti]

That is what a monopoly gets you. Overpriced merchandice.

OMG!!!!! I Can't believe you said that!

Here is a link to Sun's site where you can find their CHEAPEST "workstation"(computer with a hard drive), called "Sun Blade 2000."

It has 64-bit architecture, but at only 900MHz, it doesn't do much to impress. All that comes on it is Solaris(Sun's flavor of UNIX) and "Star Office"(their word processor).

No sound card. No monitor.

$7,595.00 !

Here is more about the Blade 2000. I see a couple of enchancements, like a good graphics card and a good motherboard, worth 200-300 bucks. Other than that, this machine seems to compare with the standard Windows/Pentium machine that you get for much less than $1000.

What a deal. To top it off, Sun keeps pretty much ALL of the money! Their CPU, their board, their graphics card, their OS, their word processing software. All Sun.

The $100 that ImphClinton menitoned is ALL Microsoft gets, unless the customer goes out and CHOOSES to buy a Microsoft product for their machine.

I have come to think that Sun is precisely everything it accuses Microsoft of being.

Maybe Microsoft should sue Sun and force them to put .NET, COM, and MFC on Solaris OS!

[firewalk]

I cannot see how Microsoft is doing anything unfair in this case.

I can't either....