E-MAILS SHOW SUN WAS WORRIED MICROSOFT HAD OUTSMARTED IT
P-I STAFF and NEWS SERVICES
10/22/98
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
FINAL
Page C2
(Copyright 1998)
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wanted to "wrest control" of Java away from Sun Microsystems and prevent the programming language from pervading the Internet, according to Microsoft e-mail unsealed in federal court in San Jose.
But computer messages by Sun executives show they were worried not that Microsoft had broken its Java contract with Sun but had outsmarted Sun in negotiating it.
The messages are among more than 100 pages of evidence disclosed for the first time in the lawsuit, in which Sun accuses Microsoft of trying to block Java from becoming a universal programming language.
Sun, based in Palo Alto, Calif., filed suit against Microsoft last October, seeking $35 million in damages for allegedly breaking its contract with Sun by developing and distributing a Windows-only form of the language.
Microsoft says it is in full compliance with the contract and that independent reviews have found its version of Java superior to Sun's own.
Most evidence in the case was originally placed under seal because of concerns about trade secrets. U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte has periodically released portions of the e-mails, reports and depositions. More documents were expected to be released during the next few weeks.
In one 1997 message, Microsoft executive Ben Slivka summed up what he thought were Gates' key concerns about Java. This message, sent from Slivka to Gates after a meeting, included questions such as: "How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?" and "How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?"
But other evidence indicates at least some at Sun thought the contract between the two companies permitted Microsoft to use Java in that way.
"Microsoft was smarter than us when we did the contract," said an e-mail message from David Spenhoff, director of product marketing at Sun's JavaSoft division, to an engineering manager. "What I find most annoying is that no one at Sun saw this coming.
"I don't think our folks who negotiated and agreed to these terms understood at the time what they meant," Spenhoff wrote.
In another e-mail Sun product manager Eric Chu wrote, "I believe we're in violation of the Microsoft contract," and in yet another, Chu wrote that, "if negotiation with Microsoft is not going well," Sun could "enhance" its certification tests to "invalidate" other versions of Java.
Sun's accusations against Microsoft are also a key part of the Justice Department's antitrust litigation against the computer giant.
--- That is the innovation, "enhance certification tests to invalidate other versions of Java". |
