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MICROSOFT FACES ANOTHER COURT CASE

Brian Grainger

Sun Microsystems seems to want to have it both ways in their war with Microsoft.

Sun spent three years fighting Microsoft in the courts, accusing them of creating non-standard Java extensions. This prevented programs written in Java for Microsoft Windows running under any other operating system.

This battle was settled out of court over a year ago. Microsoft paid Sun twenty million dollars and ended its licence to use Java.

In the light of this result Microsoft decided that its products released since that time would not support Java. It created a brand new programming language, C#, for programmers to use when developing. Windows XP is the first version of Windows that does not support Java. Using Internet Explorer 6 in Windows XP natively will not fully render web pages that use Java. Both Sun and Microsoft have released their own versions of a Java runtime add-on that will provide the necessary functionality.

Now it appears that Sun have launched a private anti-trust case against Microsoft. Sun now accuses Microsoft of making Windows XP incompatible with Java. Sun says Microsoft is acting uncompetitively in forcing other companies to make products that do not work with Java.

I do wish the anti Microsoft brigade would spend as much effort designing their own products as they do telling Microsoft how to design theirs. Then they might come up with something that we want to use. With the present outcry over the Microsoft licensing terms, there are businesses who want a non-Microsoft alternative. Sun are not going to satisfy this need by arguing in court.

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