Microsoft to ship Java, judge gives deadline

BALTIMORE: A federal judge ordered Microsoft Corp. to begin shipping Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java program within 120 days, after the companies fought over implementing a ruling he made last month. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz summoned lawyers for both sides in the private antitrust suit to a hearing on their failure to agree on the terms of a preliminary injunction.

"I can't sit here hearing after hearing," said Motz. "I want this done in 120 days." Motz later told lawyers for Microsoft and Sun that he would stay his 120-day ruling by two weeks as a courtesy to the appeals court which would likely be asked to review the ruling by Microsoft.

The judge had ruled on Dec 23 that Sun had a good chance of winning its antitrust case against Microsoft, and said he would grant a preliminary injunction forcing Microsoft to include Java in its Windows computer operating system.

He had ordered each side to draft a proposal detailing how to carry out the Java "must-carry" directive and then negotiate a compromise with each other. Sun had complained in a court filing that Microsoft wanted to take up to a year before including the Java program to copies of Windows it sells.

Microsoft told Motz that shipping Java with Windows was not a simple matter and a sudden change in the operating system could harm large corporate users of Windows.

Java vs .NET

Santa Clara, California-based Sun's lawsuit charges Microsoft has tried to sabotage its Java software and plans to dominate the market with its .NET web services software. Sun claims Microsoft views Sun's Java as a threat because it can run on a variety of operating systems, not just on Microsoft's Windows.

Among tactics cited in the lawsuit, Sun alleges Microsoft promoted an incompatible form of Java that worked best on Windows and then dropped it from Windows XP, which was introduced in 2001. Motz has been assigned cases arising from the landmark government antitrust suit filed in 1998, including a private suit by AOL Time Warner Inc. and class actions suits on behalf of consumers.

Two states, Massachusetts and West Virginia, have appealed as too weak a settlement of the government case endorsed by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar Kotelly in November. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, in 2001, agreed that Microsoft had illegally maintained its monopoly in the Windows computer operating system but rejected breaking the company in two to prevent future violations.

Microsoft attorney Steve Holley tried to argue before Motz that placing Java in Windows actually gave Sun's program an advantage over Microsoft's .NET software which he said is offered as a Windows update or as an option for computer makers. But Rusty Day, an attorney for Sun, disputed Microsoft's parity argument and protested its proposed injunction, telling Motz the case was about a long history of abuse by Microsoft.

"This is a very different injunction than Sun asked for and different I believe than the court granted," Day told Motz.

© Reuters