OT: "Sun and Microsoft Settle Lawsuit; Settlement Protects Integrity of Java Platform; Microsoft to Pay Sun $20 Million as Part of Agreement Tuesday January 23, 6:35 pm Eastern Time:"
SOURCE: Sun Microsystems
PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Sun Microsystems
Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW - news) announced
today that Microsoft Corporation has agreed to settle Sun's lawsuit
regarding the Java technology. The
settlement reached today will protect the future integrity of the Java
platform. In addition, as part of the
agreement, Microsoft has agreed to pay Sun $20 million, to accept
Sun's termination of the prior license
agreement, and to a permanent injunction against unauthorized use
of Sun's JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark.
To protect those developers using Microsoft's outdated
implementation of Sun's technology, Sun has
licensed Microsoft to distribute its existing versions, provided that
all future versions of such products
conform to and pass Sun's compatibility tests.
``It's pretty simple: This is a victory for our licensees and
consumers,'' said Sun's Chairman and CEO Scott
McNealy. ``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.''
Introduced just six years ago, the Java technology is now licensed
by 200 companies and used by 2.5
million developers. It is the fastest growing application platform in
history, and now runs on everything
from the smallest cell phones to the largest enterprise servers.
Sun's Java technology has been called a
defacto platform for e-business solutions.
``All along, this case has been about protecting licensees,
developers and consumers by preserving the
integrity and consistency of the platform,'' said Patricia Sueltz,
Sun's executive vice president, Software
Systems Group. ``The Java technology has become ubiquitous
because of the tremendous promise it delivers
in the networked computing world. This settlement will ensure that
this promise will continue to be
fulfilled.''
The technology has achieved enormous success because it allows
developers to build applications, from
seemingly simple banner advertising in internet browsers to
complicated e-commerce tools and applications
for the wireless connected consumer, that will run on the broadest
range of machines possible. This reduces
``switching costs,'' or the expense of having to modify applications
depending on what platform they are to
run on.
Microsoft realized it needed to offer the Java technology to its
developers and customers. But the technology
also threatened Microsoft's monopoly hold on the desktop
operating system market because the technology
can be used to develop applications and products that are not
dependent on the Windows operating system.
Microsoft's response to this issue was to license the technology
from Sun in 1996, promising to deliver only
compatible implementations of the technology. But Microsoft broke
its promise, and began distributing
incompatible implementations so that applications written to those
implementations would run only on
Windows.
Sun repeatedly asked Microsoft to stop shipping incompatible
implementations of the Java technology.
Microsoft refused. As a result, Sun terminated the Technology
Licensing and Distribution Agreement.
``The premise and the promise of the web is a notion that you can
trust all the participants to honor their
commitment to abide by the same set of rules,'' Sueltz said. ``Those
rules require each member of the
community to ensure that its technology will conform to the
standards that enable its products to interoperate
with other technologies.
``Microsoft has proven time and again that it is unwilling to abide
by the common rules of the internet,''
Sueltz said. ``Its behavior with regard to the Java technology was
just one instance. And when presented
with the choice of compatibility or termination, Microsoft chose
termination.''
With the contract terminated, Sun and Microsoft have agreed to end
the current litigation, initiated in
October, 1997 before Judge Ronald M. Whyte in U.S. District
Court in San Jose, under the following
general terms:
-- The Court will enter a permanent injunction barring Microsoft
from
using the JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark. Previously, the Court
found that
Microsoft had distributed incompatible implementations of the
Java
technology, and the court entered a preliminary injunction barring
Microsoft from using the JAVA COMPATIBLE trademark on these
incompatible products.
-- To protect developers and consumers who have already invested
in
Microsoft's implementations of the Java technology, Sun has agreed
to
grant Microsoft a limited license to continue shipping essentially
"as
is" its currently shipping implementations of the outdated 1.1.4
version of the Java technology. Those products have already been
modified to comply with injunctions secured by Sun in the
litigation.
The license covers only the products that already contain the Java
technology, and lasts only for seven years.
Beyond that, Microsoft has no rights to distribute the Java
technology, or to otherwise use any of Sun's
intellectual property.
Sun's Java technology continues to grow as the unifying element for
all network services.
``This year in the wireless and interactive television markets, our
partners will deliver millions of devices,
all powered by the Java technology,'' said Rich Green, Sun's vice
president and general manager of Java
Software. ``Our partners will deliver more than 250 million Java
technology-powered smartcards this year,
setting a uniform standard for security and personalization services
on the web.
``And, more than 90 percent of the application server industry has
adopted J2EE as the defacto standard,''
Green continued. ``The Java technology now powers every type of
device on the web, and does so with an
architecture that is open to both innovation and partnership.''
``By taking the direction it has, Microsoft is choosing to challenge
rather than partner with the participants in
the web services community,'' Green said.
Sun will continue to make freely available the latest, most highly
optimized version of the Java technology
(JDK 1.3) for Windows, and intends to continue to support
Windows aggressively moving forward, Green
said. And, Sun would be open to exploring the possibility of having
Microsoft distribute compliant versions
of the latest, most robust Java technology. ``Perhaps in time
Microsoft will realize the benefits of joining the
Java community,'' Sueltz said.
SOURCE: Sun Microsystems
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