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DOJ Investigating Microsoft%squots Java Interests

Antitrust probe widens to include Microsoft%squots battles with Sun over programming language.

By Bob Trott and Ed Scannell, InfoWorld Electric   

Several months ago, the Justice Department served Sun with civil investigation demands relating to its investigation of Microsoft, said Sun spokesperson Ann Little. Several state attorneys general also investigating Microsoft made the same requests, Little said.

Microsoft and Sun are locked in a court battle over the Redmond, Washington-based company%squots implementation of Java, which, if used as a platform, Microsoft views as a threat to its Windows operating system.

Sun%squots suit claims that Microsoft%squots implementations of Java in developer software and in its Internet Explorer browser co-opt the language by making it run better on Windows, which flies in the face of Sun%squots %dquotwrite once, run anywhere%dquot vision.

%dquotMicrosoft has been quite clear about its intentions for Java, that it%squots a language for developing Windows applications,%dquot said John Rymer, director and senior consultant at Upstream Consulting, in Emeryville, California.

Sources close to the probe said U.S. government investigators want to expand its ongoing investigation of Microsoft to include the company%squots Java plans. Justice Department spokesperson Michael Gordon would not comment on the matter because it is part of an ongoing investigation.

Microsoft officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Microsoft-Sun battle has divided the developer community. However, at the Seybold Seminars Publishing 98 conference in New York, an anti-Microsoft current was evident.

%dquotI%squotd like to see Java remain open. I feel that Sun really cares about that. I don%squott get the sense that Sun has a hidden agenda; but based on past performance, I couldn%squott say the same about Microsoft and Apple,%dquot said Sean Bell of ImageSystems in Boulder, Colorado.

%dquotAnything to stop the Microsoft machine is good. Java is just a little stone in Microsoft%squots road. The effort to stop Microsoft from owning the Internet is worthy, but it is inevitable that they will,%dquot added Maria Giudice, creative director at Design for Understanding in San Francisco.

(Niall McKay and Lynda Radosevich contributed to this report.)

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