Stardate 20010817.0708 (On Screen): It is impolite to correct your enemy when he is making a mistake. So goes an old British maxim about war and politics. It is fun to see a case where a company completely out-maneuvers another one so adroitly, so that it seems to give its opponent what the opponent wants, and then turns the tables in such a fashion that it turns out to be the worst thing it could be for the opponent. And Microsoft has done that to Sun, by deciding not to include a Java virtual machine in Win XP. Sun has taken out ads
trying to raise a ruckus about this -- and now Microsoft is answering those charges by calling Sun's act one of "unparalleled hypocrisy". Even if you hate Microsoft, you have to admit that they've got a point. Sun
sued Microsoft and in January gained a settlement which prevented Microsoft from updating its JVM or from using it beyond seven years. Apparently they assumed that this also included an obligation to keep using it during that seven years, but Microsoft has decided to stop supporting it early -- and Sun is now screaming
"But that's not what we meant!"Actually, Microsoft has been outmaneuvering Sun with respect to Java from the very beginning. Sun's grand plan was to implement Java as a cross-platform standard ("Write once, Run everywhere"), which would free applications from dependence on any single operating system. This would break the Microsoft OS monopoly by removing Microsoft's biggest advantage (huge base of Windows-specific applications) and allow Sun to take market share away from Microsoft in the OS space. Sun seems to have expected Microsoft to cooperate in its own destruction. So they licensed Microsoft to produce Java products, but Microsoft had no intention of being destroyed and proceeded to produce not merely a compatible JVM which was better than the one Sun had created, but to then add to it enhancements which were Windows specific (and which were superior to what Sun had produced). The result was that it was beginning to appear that it would be possible to write some Java apps which could only run on Windows -- and which would run better there than any similar Java program on any other platform. Wait a minute.
So they ended up in court. But Microsoft was able to delay the lawsuit long enough so that its outcome had become commercially moot. Then it settled for paying a token amount of money and promising to stop supporting Java. And now Microsoft is using exactly that settlement to hurt Java even more. Fancy footwork indeed! (discuss)
