Microsoft Wins Stay on Order to Add Java

[morriswindgate]

SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. on Monday won a reprieve in its battle with rival Sun Microsystems when an appeals court stayed an order requiring Microsoft to include Sun's Java programming language in its Windows operating system.

The order, from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., comes the day before an order from a lower court was to take effect, requiring Microsoft to include Java in its Windows XP software within 120 days.

The appeals court stayed the order while it considers Microsoft's appeal of a lower court order requiring the Redmond-based software company to distribute Java, a technology designed to let software run on different operating systems.

"We're pleased the Fourth Circuit has stayed the court order," said Jim Desler, a Microsoft spokesman. "We believed all along it was appropriate that this matter be decided by the circuit court before we move forward with implementing the injunction."

The appeals court's decision comes as Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems presses a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit alleging that Microsoft used its monopoly in desktop computer software to hurt Java.

Sun scored an early victory on Jan. 21 when U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Baltimore ordered Microsoft to include Java technology in its Windows XP operating system within 120 days. Motz granted a two-week delay before the order would go in effect to give Microsoft time to file its request for a stay and an expedited review by the Court of Appeals.

In a statement, Sun Microsystems said it regretted the appeal's court's decision, saying the requirement to include Java would "benefit consumers and ... the Java community's developers, enterprises and system vendors."

Lee Patch, Sun's vice president of legal affairs, added, "We look forward to demonstrating the merits of the district court's decision when the appeal is heard.

Motz could not immediately be reached for comment.

Earlier Monday, Microsoft issued an update for Windows XP that stripped out its own version of Java technology. Sun complained that the version of Java that Microsoft had been using was outdated and the differing versions made it difficult for programmers to rely on it.

Microsoft had laid out plans to make Sun's technology available through downloads, CDs and later updates in time to meet the 120-day deadline set by Motz.

The stay puts those efforts on hold, said Windows XP product manager Jim Cullinan.

Shares of Sun Microsystems fell nearly 2 percent in after-hours trading after closing the regular session up 10 cents, or 3 percent, at $3.19 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Microsoft shares gained 6 cents in extended trading, after closing the regular session up $1.10 at $48.56.

[Force Flow]

Well that's a surprise.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Good news. I was taken aback when discovered the JVM was not included in IE 6.

[morriswindgate]

For all of those people not thinking, Microsoft Virtual Machine is available as a seperate download from several places, just do a google search and get back to the on-line gambling.

[MrBigglesworth]

Can someone confirm that it's actually included on SP1, I think between the court cases they could include it on it?

[morriswindgate]

it was included with SP1, but if you have dial-up or just do not want all the changes from SP1 you can just download VM

[Byte 2.0]

No big deal, just goto java and download and install java VM.

http://java.sun.com/

[glc]

The new version of the Sun JRE integrates very nicely with IE.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/download.html