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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."
...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.
Given the government spearheaded antitrust suits of the past (Ma Bell springs to mind) I'd say about 5-10 years. At which point the decision, one way or the other, will no longer matter.
El riesgo vive siempre!
Companies like Netscape and AOL and now Sun are just now all sueing MS simply because they have lost faith in the Justice Dept to hand down stiff penalties on Microsoft, so companies harmed by Microsoft are now seeking to send down their own penalties (as in most of these lawsuits will end in MS paying off the plaintiff).
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
that the DOJ has gotten 'orders' from higher-ups in the executive branch to "Let Msft Be free to Innovate" and get govt off the backs of big business.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Here is the text of Microsoft's stance on the issue found here.
.NET to ECMA and are following through on our commitment.
.NET supports over 20 languages from Microsoft and third parties, and Java will also be supported as a full-fledged language for the .NET platform. We believe that is a better definition of choice.
An Open Letter Regarding Windows XP and Java Support
Sun Microsystems has invested a great deal of their marketing dollars and lobbying efforts in attacking our yet-to-be released Windows XP operating system, claiming that Microsoft has hurt Sun, the Java language and PC industry customers at large by not including the Microsoft virtual machine in Windows XP.
We feel it is important to outline for our customers the facts on this matter.
Sun Microsystems has taken every step possible to prevent Microsoft from shipping our award winning Java virtual machine. In fact, Sun resorted to litigation to stop Microsoft from shipping a high performance Java virtual machine that took optimal advantage of Windows. The settlement agreement provides for a termination of Microsoft's existing license with Sun and phase-out of the Microsoft VM, so Sun's professed surprise is mere spin. It should be noted that, since the settlement, a Federal Appeals Court has upheld Microsoft's development of a high-performance, well-integrated virtual machine for Windows as pro-competitive.
When Microsoft and Sun settled their litigation earlier this year, Sun was quick to pronounce the settlement a great victory. Sun's CEO said, "It's pretty simple: This is a victory for our licensees and consumers. The community wants one Java technology: one brand, one process and one great platform. We've accomplished that, and this agreement further protects the authenticity and value of Sun's Java technology."1 Sun got what they said they wanted: the termination of the existing Java license with Microsoft, and an agreement that Microsoft would phase out its Java virtual machine.
Sun now professes surprise and unhappiness, and is complaining publicly. But as industry analysts such as Bob Sutherland of Technology Business Research point out: "Sun can't have it both ways. They don't want Microsoft to have monopolistic control, but at the same time they want them to control their Java. No matter what Microsoft does, Sun is going to try to demonize them."2
Perhaps most disturbing, Sun is being disingenuous about the impact on customers. Microsoft has taken several steps to make its Java implementation available to Windows XP customers while adhering to the settlement agreement and protecting Windows customers from any future litigation by Sun. While the Microsoft virtual machine is not on the Windows XP CD, it is still an integrated part of the product. Customers who upgrade to Windows XP from recent prior versions of Windows can easily and automatically take advantage of their existing Java virtual machine. Customers with new machines or who perform a clean installation of Windows XP will automatically be offered the choice to perform a one-time download of the virtual machine the first time they browse a Web page containing a Java applet. This download is then available for any subsequent applet a customer may encounter. Finally, Microsoft has made its virtual machine available to any PC manufacturer to ship with new Windows XP systems, to save customers even this one-time download.
At Microsoft we are proud of the Java virtual machine we created, and the value our customers see in it. It has a long history of high quality and superior performance. It is also the only Java virtual machine that offers an integrated applet browsing experience with Internet Explorer. And it offered customers a choice - just as Windows XP will enable customers to choose and run other third-party virtual machines.
Sun works hard to create an image of itself as a leader in openness and choice with Java. The notion that Java is "open" is simply incorrect - Sun's actions ensure this, as again clearly demonstrated when it submitted Java to an industry standards body and then reneged on the submission, not just once but twice. Contrast these actions with Microsoft, where we have submitted the underlying specifications for Microsoft
Sun's idea of choice is that you can have any language you want, as long as it is Sun's version of Java under Sun's control. By contrast, Microsoft
Stright from MSNBC,
Sun sues for 1 billion!
http://www.msnbc.com/news/721268.asp?0cm=c30
For an opinion about this antitrust issue and Microsoft's behaviour check Cringley's column this week.
Pedro Côrte-Real.
Okay...we all know that there are some beefs with MS and their way of doing things. I can even see the Sun whining about the fragmentation of Java (not that Sun isn't doing that well enough on its own - Java 2 version 1.x - yeah that makes sense.)
But why oh why should MS have to include anything of Sun's in their OS? Okay...XP pulled out Java support. And now it really looks like Sun is complaining that the only way they can get Java everywhere is if MS is forced to include it.
Still sounds like whining to me.
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!
You can't really take sides. For several reasons:
On the one side:
1) MS has offered a decent VM from the start.
2) MS tried to screw people in adding uncompatible java calls (non-JNI) without labelling them properly. They were trying to break Java.
On the other side:
1) Sun VMs have taken a long time to match MS VMs in perfs.
3) Sun hasn't done much good in client-side support. Java applications are memory-hungry and just slow. Chances are that MS would have done better.
Hence, yes, Java has failed under Windows as a client application framework. Sun is to blame for that.
Microsoft did play hardball, but this was settled a long time ago.
Sun can't blame MS for Java's failures. Client-side Java failed under Linux too! Mozilla doesn't install Java by default!
This would be a lot more interesting if Java had been an open technology, not something controlled by Sun.
What took them so long? Going in to fight Microsoft in the courts isn't a fun thing to do. Sun has had experiance with this in the past. The legal costs will probably be large. It might also distract people from Sun's own message and product line. This is the sort of decision that has to be made with lots of care. I'd guess they had hope the courts would have smacked MS around a bit more, but decided they needed to step in since the administration has had the DOJ roll over and play dead.
MS's attitude was that there was no way they were going to allow Java to take over the Windows programming market in a way that might make Windows irrelevant underneath. They succeeded.
Sun's attitude was that there was no way they were going to allow Java to become "just a better way to write Windows apps." They succeeded.
As a result, Java is virtually irrelevant to Windows client app development, and since Windows is the vast majority of all "computer-scale" clients, Java is irrelevant for almost all client programming. Go team!
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
Sun sued Microsoft to remove the Windows only extentions from thier Virtual Machine (hence breaking the Java API. Its in the Java license that you can't do that). Microsoft just decided "to hell with you" and removed the whole Virtual machine. It was the same story with Microsoft J++.
On January 23, 2001 Microsoft and Sun settled on the lawsuit about Microsoft shipping non-standard versions of Java. Part of the settlement was the following: "Sun has agreed to grant Microsoft a limited license to continue to distribute its current version of the software, provided that all future versions of such products pass Sun's compatibility tests. This part of the agreement lasts seven years. Beyond that date, Microsoft can not distribute Java technology or use any of Sun's intellectual property."
Ok, so Microsoft can't distribute any Java after 2008. But Microsoft decided not to included the Java VM with Windows XP, kind of saying we don't need your stinking POS. Now, on this new lawsuit Sun asks among other things for: "Preliminary injunctions prior to trial requiring Microsoft to: Distribute Sun's current, binary implementation of Java Plug-in as part of Windows XP and Internet Explorer." Why don't they make up their fucking mind?
It seems to me Sun is just looking for some money to pad their lackluster balance sheet. If you think Sun is doing any of this for the good of the public you should stop watching the Teletubbies.
The lawsuit is not about java. Most of the complaints relate to workgroup servers, web-browsers and productivity suites.
Does anyone know what became of the DR-DOS/Novell/Caldera complaint that Microsoft illegally tied the OS to the window manager (GUI)? I remember running Win95 on top of DR-DOS even though Microsoft claimed the window manager and OS were inextricably linked.
What crimes?
This is, as others below me have pointed out, another example of Microsoft's competitors taking the easy way out and ligitgating their way into success, rather than earning it and convincing a larger share of the public to buy their products. No matter how you frame it, the consumer has the ultimate choice in the matter...to buy or not to buy. If the majority of consumers cared about this, they'd change their buying habits.
Dismiss my opinions as you will, but please give this article some thought. Antitrust laws are unobjective and arbitrary, punishing successful companies for the "crime" of being better than their competitors.
"All mankind is at the mercy of a handful of neurotics". - Norman Douglas
No matter how you frame it, the consumer has the ultimate choice in the matter...to buy or not to buy. If the majority of consumers cared about this, they'd change their buying habits.
at the danger of being accused of being 'dismissive', and of feeding a troll..
have you even looked up the definition of a monopoly? exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action. basically that means the monopolist has such leverage in the market, individuals no longer CAN choose an alternative. that is the point.
Antitrust laws are unobjective and arbitrary, punishing successful companies for the "crime" of being better than their competitors.
Far from it. It is fine if Microsoft is so much better than their competitors that they control most of the desktop operating system market. That is fine and good, a monopoly is not in and of itself an evil thing. But, if a monopoly uses that monopoly position to: (1) artificially inflate prices of a necessity (such as a desktop OS); (2) tie their products in other markets to their monopoly position in the desktop OS market (such as a web browser); or (3) use illegal 'blocking' means to prevent and/or stifle competition (such as agreements with computer vendors to bundle Windows and only Windows or pay the consequences).
note that i'm not trying to 'dismiss' you, just point out that maybe you don't realise that people do NOT have the choices you claim they do.
-rp
Seriously, if you MS spies or whatever you call yourselves are going to come onto slashdot and post up pro MS drivel in the face of criticism, the least you an do is try to mask it a little bit. Good Lord. That entire post is possibly the most ignorant, Microsoft Certified Shit Comment I've ever read.
I realize that I should not attack your post with only insults, so I'll give an example, but only one since I don't have much time.
You cannot honestly ask any company to ship their competitor's product with their own. That is an absurd idea at best.
The problem is not that MS Windows doesn't come with Netscape or Java or any other competition. The problem is that Microsoft makes contracts with resellers that say if they're going to sell Microsoft Crap.X version of the OS then they have to include certain things, and they have to leave out certain things (like netscape and java.) Therefore, the illegal action is not leaving the competition off their CDs, but forcing the computer sellers to only have MS crap on their machines. That's mafia-esque and just as illegal.
~ now you know
You know, as I understand it, the basic problem with Microsoft is that they use their market power to lock other people out, rather than compete with them.
Netscape: Hey OEM! We have this product! It's great! It adds value to your system! We'll license it to you cheaply! Please bundle it!
OEM: OK! Sounds Good!
Microsoft: Hey OEM! We don't want you bundling this product. Stop it or else we'll yank your Windows license... or maybe you'll just lose your "discount".
OEM(1): Yikes! We'll stop... hey, that IE 3.x product looks OK.
OEM(2): I don't know, our customers really like Netscape... maybe we could display IE prominently and still include Netscape?
Microsoft: Well, the price of producing Windows _is_ going up.... but you are a good customer, maybe we can work something out.
So it's easy to see that at first, Microsoft didn't compete on quality or even simply bundle. They tried to lock Netscape out. To a great degree, they were succesful. Netscape lost licensing revenues and mindshare which might have been used to fund good development....
But I don't see how this happened with Sun. Does Sun have contracts with OEMs to distribute JVMs or class libraries? Did they try, and were locked out? Or is it that they distributed with Netscape, and were locked out? Or are they still whining about incompatibilities with Microsoft's own terrible Java?
I may not know the facts here, but I don't see how Sun is a victim in the same way that Netscape is, much as I think Microsoft's business practices are deplorable.
Tweet, tweet.
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.
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?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
IANAL, but it looks as if they are alledging that Microsoft built the CLR off of their "illegal" Java VM. I have to say, it *was* the first thing that entered my mind when I heard how the CLR functioned. Proving that they are one and the same (with many many many additions and modifications along the way) could be the thrust of this whole lawsuit - carefully buried in item #184 all the way at the end of the document.
I'm a 2000 man.
Which is the real joke here. Sun is crashing because of the competition from Linux, Microsoft is practically irrelevant to its market.
Sun grew fat during the Internet dotcom craze because there were lots of VCs out there throwing obscene amounts of money arround. The VCs would typically demand that their companies applied the latest, sexiest technologies - regardless of whether there was a point. Some friends of mine had to recode their system from Lisp to Java just to please their VC.
A lot of the startups were buying high end Sun gear because it pleased the VCs for whom Sun meant Java, meant 'sexy', meant a red hot IPO.
Today their are two factors that are causing trade to shift from Solaris to Linux. First Linux is now sexier than Java. If your VC demands buzword compliance then Linux is fine. Second companies no longer have unlimited amounts to spend on unnecessary hardware. A company like Google that uses low cost Linux/Intel boxes is thought of much better than one that blows money on Sun gear that costs much more.
Propietary UNIX is doomed. But Microsoft is not the reason, Linux is.
The only proprietary UNIX vendor I would put much faith in long term is Apple. They do have a major base of desktop software and they are the only folk in UNIXland who appear to understand what a user interface is. But even Apple may well end up having to jetison the quasi-proprietary kernel and moving to an open source core some day.
Sun's problems are not going to be solved even if they do force Microsoft to distribute Java. At this point .NET is rapidly becoming the hot issue for enterprise customers. While .NET has lots of hype features, the core advantage of .NET is it provides the means by which the WinTel market can transition from 32 bit x86 architecture to 64 bit Itanium.
A company can transition to using the .NET CLI with a simple re-compilation. The Java VM requires them to rewrite their application, it is a non-starter as an Itanium migration strategy.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
NOW Sun is suing MS because MS isn't including their particular little technology into Windows?
Stop the circle, I want to get off.
Really, where else does this go? Can any company sue MS because they decided to not include something in their OS? I don't see any complaints that you can't install Java on your own, so any enterprise company that wants a Java solution on MS platforms can do it, it's just not bundled.
This is a load of horse-shit IMHO. If you want to accuse MS of abusing its monopoly power by bundling technology in, then fine. But don't tell me that their competitors can dictate what non-MS technologies have to be included in an MS product! That's the exact opposite of a market system!
Somedays it's just not worth chewing through the restraints...
According to Microsoft's latest filings, they have about $38,229,000 USD in either cash or short term investments. Corrections appreciated, but to me that sounds like moderately liquid assets.
Let's say we forget about those additional assets awhile, and focus only on new profits. For the last four quarters ending in December 2001, they announced a total of $26.91 billion. This amount of profit is above the previous year by a minimum of 10% in each quarter.
So, let's say that Microsoft looses two major cases -- Netscape (AOL/TW) and Sun -- and that the courts have no patience or mercy and award $2 billion each for a total of $12 billion. Let's also say Microsoft makes no effort to fight the settlement, and they fork up the $12 billion in installment payments over a span of 12 months.
At the same rate as last year, keeping it at a modest 10% growth rate, MS's profit would have grown to around $29.60 billion or a little over $81 million a day.
That means that at Microsoft's current rate, they would hand over the profit from the first 148 days of 2002 -- ending just before June kicks in.
No doubt, that's a lot of ifs. Chances are any settlement will happen years from now, and will be much more modest. Also, this does not touch the short term investments and liquid assets -- only the new profits and only using the fictional example up till June.
Corrections, additional calculations welcome.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
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.
It's been a long time.
Sun want's to be a monopolist (or at least a market leader).
Microsoft IS a monopolist.
So behaviour in one company can be considered being competitive. In another anti-competitive.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Microsoft wrote their own JVM, and therefore owns its source code. Sun didn't sue Microsoft because of theft -- they sued to protect their trademark. Even if the CLR could directly run JVM bytecode, Microsoft could legally redistribute it. They just wouldn't be able to use the name "Java" for it.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.