WASHINGTON -- Java, the computer programming language at the heart of Microsoft's antitrust trial, was criticized by Microsoft as a slow and awkward product -- but one with potential to devastate the company's lucrative Windows franchise.
The government, in its case against the software giant, has accused Microsoft of trying to dilute Java's impact because it was seen as a threat.Software programs written using Java can run on a variety of computers, usually with only minor changes, not just on computers using Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system.
The government alleges that Microsoft sensed the threat and responded by encouraging programmers to use essentially a Windows-only version of Java, called J-Direct.
On Wednesday, Microsoft attorney Tom Burt introduced evidence to bolster claims the company was simply responding legally to a new rival technology. One document outlined attempts by Sun Microsystems Inc., which produces Java, to make a microprocessing chip and computer that could grab market share from Microsoft and chipmaker Intel Corp.
In another document, Sun executive Bill Joy wrote in an e-mail to officials that "Java gives Sun a chance to break away from the Microsoft monopoly."
In his cross-examination of the government's latest witness, Burt presented Sun Vice President James Gosling with his own 1995 e-mail predicting that a $3.75 million-a-year deal to let Microsoft distribute Java would allow the technology to "instantly become a galactic standard."
That March 1996 sales agreement became hotly disputed, with Sun suing Microsoft in federal court last year over its Windows-only version of Java. A judge last month ordered Microsoft to stop selling any type of Java incompatible with Sun's.
"Personally, I don't trust them," Gosling wrote in November 1995. "The planet is littered with companies that did deals with Microsoft, expecting to win big but ended up getting totally screwed."
Before Gosling took the stand, the government played portions of videotaped testimony given by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates last summer for the trial.
In the video, Gates acknowledged that Java posed a threat to his company. However, he denied that Microsoft ever tried to discourage software developers from tailoring their products to use Java rather than Windows.
"Our concern is always to get people to develop Windows applications," Gates said. "... If we looked at how (Java) might be evolved in the future, we did think of it as something that competed with us for the attention of (software developers) in terms of whether or not they would take advantage of the advanced features of Windows."
Gates also was asked about several e-mails regarding Java's impact on Microsoft. In one letter sent to him in May 1997, Microsoft employee Ben Slivka wrote that Sun was close to releasing a new version of Java, "which we're going to be p------ on at every opportunity."
After a lengthy exchange with Justice Department lawyer David Boies, Gates said of that e-mail: "He might mean that we're going to be clear that we're not involved with it, that we think there's a better approach."
The government contends Microsoft sought to illegally maintain its Windows monopoly among computer operating systems, a claim that Boies earlier this week described as "the core of the case."