Sun Files Suit Against Microsoft for Anti-Trust Violations

Herve writes "Sun Microsystems announced it has filed a private antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corporation. The suit, filed March 8, 2002 in the United States District Court in San Jose, CA., seeks remedies for the harm inflicted by Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior with respect to the Java[tm] platform and for damages resulting from Microsoft's illegal efforts to maintain and expand its monopoly power. In June 2001, the Federal Court of Appeals found Microsoft guilty of illegally abusing its monopoly power with respect to Sun and the Java platform. Sun's suit seeks to redress the competitive and economic harm caused by Microsoft's illegal acts."

Comments

...and more

[oakz]

...the suit is also seeking access to the APIs used by Microsoft software and the IE source code.
Would be interesting to see if there are "hidden interfaces" exposed in the Windows API.

Re:...and more

[GSloop]

If I make all the roads that the world drives on, should i also be able to control the traffic - ie the cars. If you drive on MY roads, you MUST only drive one of my cars.

See, you buy a license for GSloop roads, it's only $150/day, and the cars, gas, tires and everything else come for free.

Not only that, I can use my monopoly power to sell Cars/Tires/Gas/Oil cheaper than you - well, actually they're free - so you'll never be able to compete, and thus, either you won't try, or you'll go out of business.

The only way to break my monopoly is to go into Road manufacturing yourself. Except that building your own roads will require massive funds. If you complete a few roads, I'll just sell my road license cheaper where your roads are. All the people will choose to use my roads, and incidentally free cars/gas/tires etc. Since you can't make it, you go bankrupt. Future investors see this failure, and learn quickly - don't invest in the whole roads/cars/gas thing. GSloop Inc. will really screw your investment.

That's not a fair market. Never was, never is.

The OS is a commons. It's like telephone lines, electric lines etc. It makes the most sense to only have a few sets, rather than make everyone build theirs too. Plus the uniformity is good. That's all well and good, as long as the owner of the "Commons" manages the commons for the general good.

As soon as GTE/US West (commons owners) start competing for outside services, they start to manage the commons for their own good, not the good of the customer. Soon the customer has no choice, and then bad things start to happen.

The choice is clear. If you own a commons, you have an obligation to manage it for the good of all. If you want to give up your commons, you can then start to compete with others, and not be worried about the common good. BUT YOU CAN'T DO BOTH. That's just the law.

What disgusts me, is that MS wants protections afforded by your said "capitalist society" - namely copyright protection. But they only want part of the deal, and not all. When it comes to the rules for monopoly governace, well - Screw that...that's life in a capitalist society, take it or leave it.

MS can't choose one, but not the other. Get used to it. If you want the freedoms afforded here in our capitalist society, you also have to suffer some of the regulations that keep the system fair. Copyright/Private Ownership of Capital/Monopoly governance - They're all a package. Take one, I don't want to hear whining about the others.

Cheers!

Cringley on Microsoft

[_typo]

For an opinion about this antitrust issue and Microsoft's behaviour check Cringley's column this week.

Treble damages...

[GSloop]

For all those of you just tuning in...

If Sun wins the suit, they stand to get treble damages, because MS has already been found guilty of abusing a monopoly.

Frankly, it's this type of stuff that's really going to put a serious drag on MS.

I do wish the JD and GWB would actually DO somthing about MS, but it appears that they won't. Hopefully the states will be able to continue. The reason I want this, is it seems, well unseemly, that Sun et. al. use this forum to get MS. Sure, MS deserves it, but it's not like Sun wouldn't be doing the same thing, should they be in MS's position.

It just seems better for the Gvmt to strike MS, and split the company. They should also levy massive fines, as the value of competing companies could have been very large - but instead they're bankrupt or playing the small time. (Think of DR-Dos, OS/2, Netscape, WordPerfect, Novell etc.)

Why do I think splitting the co is the right action? Well, that way the Gvmt doesn't have to be invloved in the day-to-day activites of the company. The problem now, is that what benefits MS's is often not what benefits the customers. It's better for MS to keep the client locked to Windows, and locked to Office, as well as all the other "tightly-integrated" MS apps - think tightly-insecure!

If the Office group were a separate company, then they wouldn't care who used office. Any copy sold was a buck in their pocket. So, port it anywhere it could sell decently. But right now, it's to their benefit (high stock-price, better profit sharing etc) to help sell Windows the OS. More Windows, more bucks. Don't sell office on other platforms that threaten Windows, because it cuts into your pay.

By breaking the company into smaller function specific pieces, we can align the best interest of the company with those of the consumer. Ala - a MARKET based solution - stemming from necessasary Gvmt intervention. That's the way it should be.

But, if our good old DOJ can't do it's job properly, I guess we'll just have to settle for a box or rats all biting each other to cut MS back to size. It's sure not pretty, but it'll probably help. I guess the guilty verdict is the the good thing to come out of this so far...

Cheers!

Not entirely true

[jordan_a]

The press releases says:

Disclose and license proprietary interfaces, protocols and formats.

This doesn't include the actually source code for IE. It might include the .DOC format though, now that could be intresting

2 points people seem to have missed

[Mr. Storm]

1) Several folks say the previous Sun suit was to get Java off Windows. I beleive it was to force MS to follow the contract and keep the MS version 100% compatible with the established standards. When MS LOST that suit, they decided to pull all support. If Sun didn't want Java on windows they wouldn't have licensed it to them in the first place.
2) Did anyone consider that maybe the MS Java VM being faster than the Sun Java VM had something to do with MS not makeing their full APIs available for other companies to use? Just a thought.

Re:Out of court settlements and private negotiatio

[frank249]

Part of Microsoft's investment deal was Corel's agreeing to waive any future law suits. It may have saved them at the time but Sun's claim is peanuts compared to the damages Corel could have claimed due to Microsoft hijacking the Office suites market.

All may not be lost. Earlier this week news came out that the former antitrust chief under
New York AG, Stephen Houck, has joined the rebelling states' legal team, throwing Ballmer
and his legal eagles off balance. The NY AG's office was leading the
enquiry into the Office suites monopoly case until they shelved it to
concentrate in the still-lingering Netscape case.

The Office suite case files are there to be picked up again, and this
time MS has already been convicted of monopolist behaviour; it's just
the "remedy" that they're busy watering down, despite Enron hanging
over quite a few high-placed Republicans' heads.

If the Netscape case, as it would appear, gets sold down the river,
what are the chances that the angry states will try again using
heavier ammunition, such as WordPerfect Office? Or if Java is deemed worth billions
under a private antitrust case, what would the former main competitor
to Microsoft's profit center Office be worth?

Whatever rights Burney signed away in order to get that "life-saving
investment" from MS, surely those clauses can be annulled by any
fractionally competent lawyer. The second task would be get injunction
against MS-Office...

Of course someone would need to take over this company first, but
they'd get all the products, including the WPO, for practically
nothing! In this climate some high-profile law offices might even want
to take the private Office antitrust lawsuit on a commission basis. BTW Corel's market cap is a little over $250 mil while they have over $100 mil of cash. So for $150 investment someone could get a chance at a big settlement and the company/products would be a bonus. Anyone out there from IBM or AOL interested?

Re:Boys be Boys

[Sj0]

KDE and GNOME exist outside of the market. They exist outside of the market due to the problems of competiting commercially against the "most compatible" player. No gratis-ware can be used to refute the existence of a monopoly. The fact that gratis-ware is the most likely competition against the market leader is infact a demonstration that the market leader enjoys a monopoly as defined by the Sherman Act.

I was suprised when I read this. It's not often an attitude shown on slashdot, but it is true. When it takes a completely free OS, with tons of completely free Applications, and free access to the source code of all these Applications, to get a tiny 1% market share, the market has failed miserably. I have tremendous respect for Linux and it's supporting projects, but it isn't a good example of how the market isn't being monopolized. BeOS, a commercial project which showed incredible potential, and had even met some of that potential(and I'm running it right now), on the other hand, is a good example of how it is monopolized.