The injunction is due to be issued later this month after Motz has conferred with Microsoft and Sun about its technical details, while Microsoft is planning to appeal the ruling once it has fully ingested the 42-page decision.
In the ruling, Judge Motz agreed with Santa Clara, California-based Sun’s argument that Microsoft had gained an unfair advantage by shipping Windows with an outdated version of Java, which had the potential effect of driving developers towards its own .NET development platform.
Unless Sun is given a fair opportunity to compete in a market untainted by the effects of Microsoft’s past antitrust violations, there is a serious risk that in the near future the market will tip in favor of .NET, wrote Motz in his ruling. I further find it is an absolute certainty that unless a preliminary injunction is entered, Sun will have lost forever its right to compete, and the opportunity to prevail, in a market undistorted by its competitor’s antitrust violations.
The case has its roots in a March 1996 licensing agreement between the two companies through which Microsoft licensed Sun’s Java technologies for its Windows operating system. That license was terminated in January 2001 as the two companies settled litigation relating to modifications made by Microsoft to its version of the Java Virtual Machine that made it incompatible with Java on other platforms.
While the settlement of that court case put an end to Sun’s claims that Microsoft had broken its contract with the company, Sun maintained the right to pursue claims relating to antitrust violation. In his ruling the judge agreed that Microsoft’s actions were in violation of antitrust law.
Microsoft embraced Java for the purpose of destroying it, wrote Motz in his ruling. At the least, Microsoft bought time to develop its own competitive product, and it is now bringing that product to a market its own antitrust violations have substantially distorted.
While the Judge’s ruling will appear to many to be a case of positive discrimination in favor of Sun, his decision maintains that the ruling is in the interests of competition and ensuring that Microsoft does not gain unfair advantage from antitrust violations.
Competition is not only about winning the prize; its deeper value lies in giving all those who choose to compete an opportunity to demonstrate their worth, he wrote. If .NET proves itself to be a better product than Java, it should – and will – predominate. If that occurs, it should be because of .NET’s superior qualities, not because Microsoft leveraged its PC monopoly to create market conditions in which it is unfairly advantaged.
Source: Computerwire
