Microsoft asked a federal appeals court on Wednesday to shelve a lower court order that would force it to start incorporating Sun Microsystems' Java programming language in its Windows operating system. The world's largest software company filed an emergency motion with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., seeking a stay of the Java must-carry order until the court considers its challenge of the order.
In the motion, Microsoft's lawyers asked for an expedited hearing of the lower-court ruling, which they called extreme and unprecedented. "The injunction will inflict serious harm on Microsoft and Windows, Microsoft's flagship product, that is distributed to many millions of customers throughout the world," Microsoft told the appeals court.
Microsoft is hoping to overturn an order issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Baltimore that requires Microsoft to begin putting Sun's Java into Windows within 120 days after the order is entered. Motz said in an opinion issued Dec. 23, 2002, that the Java must-carry order was needed to remedy Microsoft's past antitrust violations and level the playing field between Java and Microsoft's .Net Web services software. Motz said there was a "substantial" likelihood that after a full trial he would impose the order permanently, calling it "an elegantly simple remedy" aimed at preventing Microsoft's past wrongs from giving it an advantage in the market battle for Internet-based computing. The Java must-carry idea was rejected by another federal judge in the separate government antitrust case against Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.
View: The full story
News source: c|net
In the motion, Microsoft's lawyers asked for an expedited hearing of the lower-court ruling, which they called extreme and unprecedented. "The injunction will inflict serious harm on Microsoft and Windows, Microsoft's flagship product, that is distributed to many millions of customers throughout the world," Microsoft told the appeals court.
Microsoft is hoping to overturn an order issued Tuesday by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Baltimore that requires Microsoft to begin putting Sun's Java into Windows within 120 days after the order is entered. Motz said in an opinion issued Dec. 23, 2002, that the Java must-carry order was needed to remedy Microsoft's past antitrust violations and level the playing field between Java and Microsoft's .Net Web services software. Motz said there was a "substantial" likelihood that after a full trial he would impose the order permanently, calling it "an elegantly simple remedy" aimed at preventing Microsoft's past wrongs from giving it an advantage in the market battle for Internet-based computing. The Java must-carry idea was rejected by another federal judge in the separate government antitrust case against Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.
View: The full story News source: c|net
Furthermore, an email from Universal was accidentally sent out to developers last week stating that all work on GBA titles should be suspended. The email was promptly recalled and branded an error, but could it be that this was in some way tied in with this alleged deal?
We contacted Vivendi for comment and a spokesperson told us: "We've heard all sorts of rumours over the past months - Activision, EA and many more. They'd all like to get their hands on Blizzard. I guess Microsoft are one of the few companies that has enough money."
A Microsoft spokesperson would only state: "This is a rumour and we do not comment on rumours."
If the rumours prove true, this will be a huge boost for Microsoft's soaring Xbox console, providing it with a broad spectrum of big-name games that would either appear as Xbox lead or as Xbox exclusives outright.
We'll keep you posted on all developments.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.