Brian and thread,
Sunday October 12 4:38 PM EDT
Some see Sun's Java waning during legal fight
By Samuel Perry
PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct 12 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc. has challenged Microsoft Corp. in court over control of Sun's Java technology but whatever the outcome, Sun's dream to make Java into universal software may already be crushed.
Industry officials and analysts said the legal battle launched last week could drag on for years in a business where competitive advantage can be measured in weeks -- and that the outcome by then may be almost
irrelevant.
''Both sides are playing the chess game well, but Microsoft has six queens,'' one veteran Silicon Valley executive said last week, requesting anonymity. ''As developers in Java, it's very important for us that we can 'write once, run anywhere'.''
The phrase has become a mantra for Sun, which introduced Java two years ago as a way to build programs on the World Wide Web and as a technology to allow programs to run on otherwise incompatible computers.
Sun's lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday, charges Microsoft, a Java licensee, with breach of its contract for allegedly leaving out certain key elements of Java in recent releases of Microsoft software.
At issue is whether Microsoft will let Java be used to link into personal computers using Microsoft's Windows operating system, which could cut into sales of Microsoft software, analysts said.
Kimball Brown at Dataquest, a San Jose research firm, said Microsoft would never allow its software programs to be operated by other computers not running Windows.
This would explain why Sun says Microsoft has left out key Java features from its recent Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 software and a development kit for computer programmers.
''Java's broken as of last week,'' said Brown, asserting that Java will from now on be divided into the standard version which Sun owns and controls, and Microsoft's version.
''There's no way on earth that they're (Microsoft and Sun) going to come to an agreement. The question is whether Sun has enough of a following to keep Java alive as a platform.''
In addition to fighting in court, the companies are battling for the hearts and minds of computer programmers, hundreds of thousands of whom Sun claims now want Java instead of Microsoft's Windows platform.
A key risk to both companies is alienating customers, many of whom want to cut technology costs.
''From a customer point of view it creates a lot of confusion and I think it defeats the opportunity of really liberating the Internet as a vehicle to do things better,'' said Zack Rinat, chief executive officer of NetDynamics, Inc.
Rinat, whose closely held company offers commercial Java applications to link diverse systems, says his business has been doubling every quarter.
''My feeling is that the customer needs to be isolated from the religious wars,'' he said, referring to the rhetoric flowing from both companies. ''At the end of the day IT (information technology) organizations need to focus on solutions to business problems, not technical issues.''
Key to the plot is whether an alliance of companies led by Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy can shake Microsoft and billionaire Chairman Bill Gates from their pedestal.
Java could put a chink in Microsoft's armor, and Sun said it was acting on behalf of 116 other Java licensees by taking Microsoft to court.
Sun executives said they were trying to lure Microsoft back into the fold, and they stopped short of threatening to revoke Microsoft's license, which could further cripple Java.
Microsoft says it is being singled out unfairly. Charles Fitzgerald, a Microsoft Java group program manager, said the lawsuit was an ''outrageous'' display of saber-rattling.
Fitzgerald vowed that Microsoft would continue ''full-speed ahead'' with its technology development and Steve Ballmer, executive vice president at Microsoft, said Thursday he expected the lawsuit would drag on ''for a long time.''
By then, several executives said, Microsoft could well have established its own version of Java among developers.
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