Sun To Continue To Go After Microsoft

Raiford writes "Sun Microsystem's has vowed to continue their pursuit of seeking damages from Microsoft in spite of the current ruling. A Reuters feature describes yesterday's ruling a setback for Sun and upholding light punishment on Microsoft. The current decision has not deterred Sun from pursuing a billion dollar suit maintaining a position of claiming significant harm from what they feel is clear monopoly"

Comments

Fly going after the elephant

[Raul654]

Ok, Sun sues Microsoft in a long and costly trial, and and wins $1 billion end (maybe). Microsoft still has $30 Billion in the bank.

Re:Fly going after the elephant

[JordanH]

Not really. They actually have closer to $40 Billion in the bank now and they're accumulating at the rate of about $1 Billion a month.

So, $1 Billion to Sun, $3 Billion to the EU, $1 Billion to AOL, and let's be really generous and say $7 Billion covers all the rest and their lawyers.

If the lawsuits take more than a year, and they will, they'll still have more than they started with.

Re:Fly going after the elephant

[tc]

Enron of software? On what grounds? The article you linked to is pure bunk, and it's pretty easy to see why.

While it's true that if stock options were accounted for as expenditure, Microsoft would have posted a paper loss in some previous years, it's also true that when the stock fell, the same computation would have left them posting a phenomincal profit for precisely the same reason. These fluctuations are exactly why accounting stock options as expenses year-on-year doesn't make sense, and why it is not generally accepted accounting practice.

The undeniable fact is that somehow Microsoft has accumulated over $40 billion in liquid asset reserves. How did that happen if they took a loss every year? The contrast with Enron could not be more stark.

PS. I thought the reference to The Economist was particularly cute, since the article referred to concluded nothing like the taken out-of-context quote implied.

Business Strategy???

[rnd()]

I guess for some it's easier to litigate than it is to spend time/money on developing better products.

To see how confident Wall Street feels about this strategy, look here.

Re:Business Strategy???

[the eric conspiracy]

I guess for some it's easier to litigate than it is to spend time/money on developing better products.

Hmmm... I didn't see any place in the article that stated Sun was dropping it's R&D program to pursue the lawsuit. Nor did they mention anything about Bill Joy becoming a lawyer, or similar steps.

These are not mutually exclusive.

Re:Business Strategy???

[Schnapple]

If I had mod points I'd mod this up. Microsoft is not infallible, all you have to do is do a better product.

Microsoft's PhotoDraw product tried a couple of times to enter the graphics market. Never did put a dent in Photoshop or CorelDRAW.

Does anyone remember the Windows Sound System? Microsoft tried to make a sound card at one point in time. Creative didn't go anywhere or sue.

And let's not forget how Sony and Nintendo are handing Microsoft their hat in the console arena.

On the flipside, Microsoft tried to buy Intuit to take over their Quicken product. Since this was when the DOJ was starting to breathe down MS' neck, they backed off. Instead, they went on to make Microsoft Money as good as possible. The result? Now Microsoft Money is consistently rated higher than Quicken by critics and its taking away critical market share.

Two years ago, PalmOS enabled devices commanded 86% of the market - nowadays the market is more than half PocketPC.

In these last two examples, Microsoft didn't pull any punches, they were just better. Perhaps if Netscape had kept up instead of whining to the feds they could have beat Microsoft.

And as for the notion that a good chunk of the reason Microsoft "wins" in the business world is because of mindshare (i.e., the bosses all just think MS is better) - tough shit. I mean, suing a company because they happen to be more popular? Sun is crying to mommy. Too bad mommy just called it bullshit.

Re:Business Strategy???

[nrosier]

Does anyone remember the Windows Sound System? Microsoft tried to make a sound card at one point in time. Creative didn't go anywhere or sue.
Microsoft couldn't bundle the card with their OS...

Perhaps if Netscape had kept up instead of whining to the feds they could have beat Microsoft.
If you choke somebody so they don't have any R&D money left to develop the thing, what else can you do? Remember Netscape used to sell their browser for commercial use. Microsoft just bundled it with their OS (for which you have to pay so they got $$$ anyway).

I mean, suing a company because they happen to be more popular?
Where in the lawsuit is it mentionned that they are suing over popularity? You need a reality check.

Sun has jumped the shark

[Voytek]

This just proves it. Sun needs to stop fucking around with an irrelevant lawsuit the will never be resolved.

Instead, Sun needs to go after .NET with a Java3 marketing blitz, before .NET gets too established. Take all that money they're spending on lawyers and saturate the enterprise app market with advertising and FUD.

Let me clarify that I'm absolutely not joking - I'm a J2EE consultant, and I really like the technology; I don't savor the prospect of having to become a .NET consultant to pay the bills in 3 or 4 years.

Re:Sun has jumped the shark

[vicious_sloth]

That may be true and all, but Sun really needs this lawsuit, not only to protect itself but to keep microsoft in check. Say Sun did not file lawsuit, then they are in effect condoning M$'s monoplistic behavior. Its like trying to play fair with someone who keeps on cheating.

It is a very unfair fight though, Microsoft has tons of cash and resources to battle with. If no one says or does anything (ie. file lawsuits) then Microsoft will keep on expanding its monolopy and destroying competition.

If Sun wins this, it would be a big blow to Microsoft and open then door to even more lawsuits against Microsoft, and then evetually we may even get real competition, which is a good thing(tm)

Re:Sun has jumped the shark

[ReelOddeeo]

What ever happened to the "let the best software win" viewpoint? If non Microsoft software is "better enough", then it will win. No business would sacrefice profit out of some sentimental attachment to Microsoft products.

This is so flawed I don't know where to begin.

Yeah, Microosft, whatever happened to let the best software win?

Were you involved with computers during the mid 1980's? People who just recently arrived on the scene seem to think that Microsoft got to where they are by making superior products.

People don't choose Microsoft because it is the best. They get it because they have no real choice.

Order a new PC. You get to choose what kind of monitor you want. Choose what video card you want. Choose how large a hard drive you want. How much RAM. Some OEM's let you make more choices than others. But one choice they don't let you make is what OS to run. (You can have any OS you want as long as you pay Microsoft.)

This was especially true during the early days. Even if you wanted a competing OS, and there WERE competing OSes for awhile during the early 80's, you still had to pay Microsoft for their OS, even if it was not installed on your new box. This is because of Microsoft's exclusive arrangements with manufacturers. This is how you build a monopoly. By eliminating choices. In 1995, Microsoft finally signed a consent decree with the DOJ promising to stop this practice. Too little, too late.

Once you are an established monopoly, you can charge anything you want. Nothing else to compare prices to. Microsoft's price has gone only one direction. Now that you are raking in the money, you can pour buckets of money into development in order to finally develop good products.

Then a whole new niave generation comes along which thinks that people choose Microsoft because it is best.

Ok, BUT

[bullseye2]

As a Solaris Admin, (and HP-UX and Linux,) I can apreciate what Windoze has done. HOWEVER, I must say that SUN has done some underhanded move itself. Anyone else remember the little e-cache issue.

Re:Ok, BUT

[Zapman]

I remember the ecache issue quite well. I don't know if I'd call it underhanded on Sun's part, though maybe for IBM.

See, IBM sold Sun the cache for their CPU's, and never bothered to inform them that there was a rather high failure rate. And with Sun throwing 8 megs of cache on their chips, you're bound to run into that sooner rather than later.

BTW: this problem got fixed when they started the SAMBRA process (effectivly, 16 megs of cache, 8 megs, mirrored, any byte goes bad, and it's flagged, and the mirror is used only), and was wacked totally when they started using (Toshiba?) instead of IBM for cache.

Now, if you're refering to how they didn't exactly publicise the fact that there wre significant problems... you might have a point there. However, I can see how they only wanted to fix those who 1) Sun they had the supply for (it takes a while to ramp up a new design for the same processor) and 2) customers who had the most need of the new chips. If it hasn't failed yet, why change it?

My company was rather high on the list and Sun replaced every system board, and every stick of ram, and every CPU in both of our e10k's.

For free.

All we had to do was schedule the downtime.

Re: Sun to go after Microsoft

[rutledjw]

I dunno. I think I'd rather see Sun focus on improving their products (Sparc and Java) than go after MS. I'm not convinced you can really corner those characters.

Further, I think MS will hang themselves. No, I'm serious here. Oppressive corporate strategies - both licensing and DRM sorts of things will get them eventually. Neither of these are beneficial to the consumer (business or personal) and at some point, MS will have to pay the price. If one is to believe some of the articles floating around, companies are already looking to *nix as an MS alternative

I think Sun should focus on making their products the best they can and spend less time railing on the Evil Empire (tm).

hoping for a change in administrations?

[call -151]

Remember that the last DOJ probe into Microsoft was derailed by the change from Clinton to Bush (things were looking promising, but right before the elections there was a go-slow/wait-and-see pause) that resulted in a much more `business-friendly' administration that did not pursue the settlement very agressively.

With this in mind, maybe if Sun starts something now they are hoping that in two years there may be another administration that might think that monopoly power abuse is actually a bad thing and will pick up the ball then... It can't hurt to start something now with that hope...

Moby Dick

[CatWrangler]

Ahab McNealy was entertaining for a while, but enough is enough. He needs to regroup, realize that as odeous as Microsoft is, he needs to focus his energy elsewhere for the time being.

The Great White Whale will still be there, fat and bloated, and will have it's justice eventually.

Tilting at windmills can be fun, but after a while it begins to effect the rest of your business.

What if MS is actually getting better?

[RealityThreek]

The usual opinion seems to be that MS will eventually bring itself down because of oppressive licensing tactics, etc.

The unfortunate thing is that they have actually been getting better in stability and security in their products. If they continue to improve their products to a point where they are actually half-decent, the only upperhand we'll still have is that opensource software is free as in beer.

I like seeing opensource stuff because it is free, but also because it's an alternative. Having competition means innovation and better products all around. But if people stop seeing Microsoft software as crappy and crash-prone then what incentive is there to switch away from it?

Limitted scope of original trial

[Space Coyote]

It's actually a good thing for Sun that the antitrust trial focused almost exclusively on the browser issue. And the findings of fact still stand, whether the DoJ crumpled or not.

Microsoft's ability to bribe politicians is one thing, but it doesn't grant them immunity from legal action on the part of those they may have wronged in the past. (I'll reserve judgment on their guilt until more evidence is presented, but I wouldn't put it past them considering what they did to Apple, Borland or Netscape)

Re:Different things.

[MrEd]

"having a monopoly" is still illegal

Nope! Having a monopoly is perfectly fine except that it entails that you play nice. Monopolies are bound to a stringent set of rules about how they can (or cannot, mostly) leverage their monopoly in their business practices.

Using your monopoly in one area (operating systems) to obtain a monopoly in another (web browsers) is, for example, illegal. *cough*

lawsuits last hope to keep M$ in check

[fermion]

Continuing lawsuits will be the only way to stop the M$ creature from consuming everything in it's path and creating a monoculture in the software and hardware market. We all see XBox and we all see where it is going. A thriving market need competition and challenge. M$, Intel, and AMD does not provide enough diversity for survival. The U.S. government has shown it will not protect the free market from terrorists.

You can talk about lack of quality from Sun, Apple, Linux, SGI all day long, but if you believe in free markets, that talk holds no water. Many people pay a lot of money for the above products when it would often be simpler and less expensive to buy an old intel machine a steal a copy of windows. Yet the above companies survive.

M$ is bringing investors and, to a larger degree, brokers a lot of profits. From that point of view the demise of Sun, probably bad for the long term, would be great for the short term as it would remove yet another thorn in M$ side.

The fact is that Sun, Apple, and everyone else makes better products because of M$. M$ makes better products because of everyone else. The same goes for the Intel, AMD, Motorola and AMD.

M$ wants the next step to a closed commodity box in which they control the hardware, software,and access. I do not think that this is a bad for certain applications. However, without competition, and without the lawsuits, this is all we will have for most applications.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

When did Sun ever compete for the desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

If Sun bitches about Microsoft being a monopoly, I have to ask: When did Sun ever produce affordable cheap desktop computers that students could buy, or software that secretaries could use in daily office work? How many people do you know own a Sun laptop? Or a Sun palmtop? When is the last time you ever saw a commercial computer game produced by Sun Microsystems sold at Electronics Boutique? Where are the Sun machines in retail stores such as WalMart, or at the thousands of Mom-and-Pop computer stores spread across the world who advertise in the daily newspapers? Can you even connect to AOL from a Sun machine using AOL software? Did Sun ever pursue this? "Well, AOL isn't used by our target demographic." GOTCHA!

A long time ago, Sun seriously thought about buying Apple...then abandoned that plan. The desktop WASN'T their market at that time, otherwise it should have been a no-brainer. McNealy balked on the price. How convenient for Sun to continue their "Robin Hood" ruse of saving the masses from the Evil King, while Linux erodes their base (think of Oracle switching to Linux). And just how hard would it have been to re-create the Macintosh user-interface experience on Sun anyhow? Look at background of the authors of KDE and GNOME. Just what are those thousands of Sun employees DOING? Sun is complaining about Microsoft owning the Desktop?

And what about their strategy? Sun produces Java for free -- "write once, run anwhere." So then their "Office-killer" should be easy to port to the Macintosh, just as Microsoft does. But wait, StarOffice is written in C++, so it's "unlikely" we'll see a port, according to Sun officials. And what about Sun's flip-flopping: First it was going to be free. Then Sun waffled and started charging for it. Java is Open Source -- but only sort of. Sun is complaining about Microsoft owning the Desktop?

This flip flopping is not new. Consider the recent flap over the Solaris on 0x86 machines. Sun planned to drop support (and even the product) until enough users bitched about it (http://www.save-solaris-x86.org/). So much for "corporate strategy". Sun is complaining about Microsoft owning the Desktop?

And I have never understood how Sun expected to profit from Java. If they thought that Java could be a loss-leader to push hardware, then they got a nasty lesson when their "thin-client" Java-based computers went nowhere. Sun can only blame themselves. Furthermore, if Java is "write once, run anywhere", then nobody needs to buy a Sun machine. Sun is complaining about Microsoft owning the Desktop?

Maybe Sun though they could profit from "goodwill", ie, if they gave away their software, more people would be loyal to them for hardware. Looks like that strategy didn't work, and it only leads credence to the idea that Sun thinks of itself as a specialized HARDWARE company more than a software company. Sun is complaining about Microsoft owning the Desktop?

Dressing up as a penguin ain't gonna sell more Sun computers, Scotty. How many millions were wasted on that stupid advertising campaign saying "We're the DOT in DOT COM"? Yeah, Sun is going to become a DOT pretty soon. And how many millions are being wasted on the lawyers? How many millions were pissed away when those same dollars could have been used wisely in software development or subsidizing lower costs for computer hardware?

The Sun is setting very quickly. Go ahead and sue. You'll only be hastening your demise.

Sun is playing the wrong game

[Snork Asaurus]

I'll bet that in their collective minds MS feels vindicated - the fact that they were found guilty of anti-trust violations is years-old news and really isn't important to them anyway. What is important to them is that they got away with it, probably thanks in no small part to Asscroft and Bush and some well-spent campaign contributions. The media is helping MS to appear vindicated by shouting "Microsoft Won!" and then whispering "at getting away with it". I expect that MS will behave like a petulant child that only received a scolding and a wink for setting fire to the school house and truly exploit their apparent omnipotence from now on.

So, unfortunately, in today's screwed-up world, maybe the lesson that Sun needs to learn from this is to play outside the rules and fight like hell when caught. To the victor of that game go the spoils.

Sun should improve their own stuff

[Otis_INF]

Sun should improve their own stuff, like the Java SDK, to meet MS quality as shown in the .NET SDK. Non-developers might start laughing now, but I'm dead serious: MS has the best stuff available for developers: a kick ass developer website (MSDN website) and f.e. a kick ass SDK for .NET (with excellent documentation, tools and examples).

So why on earth should I start using Sun stuff and abandone MS stuff, in a way that makes MONEY for Sun? Sun hardware, their cashcow, is very expensive, and competes with IBM, not with MS, their Java is nice, but MS' material is better...

When I started developing software after university graduation in 1994, Sun was king and if you wanted to use Unix (PC/MS stuff was err... crap :) ) you focussed on Sun's hardware. Today this is not the case anymore: Win2k server on a dead cheap Dell with .NET (free) will do perfectly. So why bother with expensive Sun hardware? Because it runs till doomsday without a reboot? I can buy 2 Dell servers and 2 win2k licenses for these boxes plus a hardware load balancer for the price of a sun server. Such a setup WILL run till doomsday and I still save money.

And IF I want to leave the MS ship, I can remove the Win2k from those boxes, install a Linux distro and start using Java. Sun won't get a dime.

So, looking at all this, the REAL reason Sun has lost a lot of money is not due to MS, but because there are cheaper alternatives which WILL meet the requirements of the customer. Sun isn't the first option for many people, it's an option for a shrinking group of people. This lawsuit isn't helping Sun at all, since this lawsuit will not make Sun an option for a growing group of people AGAIN, will not make money for Sun in the long run. The reason for this is that there are MORE alternatives than the wintel combination: Linux + Java.

McNealy should really start thinking about how to make Sun no.1. again by making Sun a valuable option, instead of crying fool about a competitor who simply does what it should do: make money, and lots of it.