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Judge bash microsoft Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021206/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_sun_10http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021206/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_sun_10
Technology - AP
Judge Compares Microsoft to Tonya Harding
Fri Dec 6, 1:09 AM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By BRIAN WITTE, Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE (AP) - The federal judge overseeing Sun Microsystems' request for an injunction against Microsoft found several comparisons between the software companies and the world of athletics.
U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz compared Microsoft's treatment of Sun to Tonya Harding (news - web sites)'s knee-capping attack on rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan (news - web sites), as well as a crooked baseball game between Baltimore and New York.
Motz ruminated from the bench Thursday as attorneys gave their closing arguments in the three-day hearing on Sun's request to force Microsoft to carry the latest version of Sun's Java programming language in Windows.
After assuming for the sake of the analogy that Kerrigan was the better skater, Motz said: "Nancy Kerrigan is deprived of the opportunity to compete on those two good knees."
Motz also compared Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct to a baseball game between the Orioles and Yankees, in which one team uses a camera in center field to steal signals from the opponent.
The judge said there was a "social value" in being able to participate fairly in a market undistorted by one's competitor.
"Capitalism is about making money, but it's also about something else. It's also about pride of product," Motz said.
Several times, Motz spoke of an "intangible value" of being able to compete in an environment that has not been distorted by a competitor.
Without an injunction, Sun faces "imminent harm" and can't remain competitive in a market dominated by Microsoft, said Sun attorney Lloyd R. Day, who laced his closing argument with references to Motz's knee-capping analogy.
Microsoft has been trying to advance its own .NET program by violating contracts and trying to destroy the value of Java, Day said.
Day said Microsoft has tried to seize a competitive advantage by "mugging its principal competitor."
An attorney for Microsoft said Sun's attorneys "terribly muddled" the issues and misstated the law. David Tulchin said both Java and .NET face a competitive environment for years to come. He also said Java is gaining developers' attention.
Sun had failed to pursue its own distribution strategies, Tulchin said. And there was no evidence that Sun's Java language faced imminent harm, he said.
"The only thing we have here is speculation about what might happen in the future," Tulchin said.
Earlier Thursday, University of Chicago economics professor Kevin Murphy testified that Microsoft's distribution advantage isn't enough to justify forcing the company to include Java.
Sun says Microsoft gained an unfair advantage by shipping its system — used by more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers — with an outdated version of Java that's inconsistent for its users.
Software developers are therefore turning to .NET instead of gambling on Microsoft's spotty distribution of Java, Sun attorneys told Motz.
Microsoft attorneys counter that at least half the world's software developers already use Java.
Sun says the injunction is necessary; by the time the company catches up, after its $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft is settled, it will be too far behind to compete, attorneys argued.
Sun accuses Microsoft of intentionally creating incompatibilities with competitors' products. It says antitrust violations by Microsoft forced other companies to distribute or use products incompatible with Java.
The case is one of four private antitrust lawsuits that followed a federal judge's ruling in a suit brought by the Justice Department (news - web sites) that Microsoft acted as an illegal monopoly based on its dominance in desktop operating systems.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved a settlement in that case that bars Microsoft from retaliating against or threatening computer manufacturers. The settlement also compels Microsoft to share key technical data with competitors that allow their programs to run more smoothly with Microsoft operating systems.
Motz said he was unsure when he would rule.
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On the Net:
Sun Microsystems: http://www.sun.com
Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com
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