Opinion ID: 185418
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Deception of Java developers

Text: 147 Microsoft's Java implementation included, in addition to a JVM, a set of software development tools it created to assist ISVs in designing Java applications. The District Court found that, not only were these tools incompatible with Sun's cross-platform aspirations for Java--no violation, to be sure-but Microsoft deceived Java developers regarding the Windows-specific nature of the tools. Microsoft's tools included certain 'keywords' and 'compiler directives' that could only be executed properly by Microsoft's version of the Java runtime environment for Windows. Id. p 394; see also Direct Testimony of James Gosling p 58, reprinted in 21 J.A. at 13959 (Microsoft added programming instructions ... that alter the behavior of the code.). As a result, even Java developers who were opting for portability over performance ... unwittingly [wrote] Java applications that [ran] only on Windows. Conclusions of Law, at 43. That is, developers who relied upon Microsoft's public commitment to cooperate with Sun and who used Microsoft's tools to develop what Microsoft led them to believe were cross-platform applications ended up producing applications that would run only on the Windows operating system. 148 When specifically accused by a PC Week reporter of fragmenting Java standards so as to prevent cross-platform uses, Microsoft denied the accusation and indicated it was only adding rich platform support to what remained a crossplatform implementation. An e-mail message internal to Microsoft, written shortly after the conversation with the reporter, shows otherwise: 149 [O]k, i just did a followup call.... [The reporter] liked that i kept pointing customers to w3c standards [(commonly observed internet protocols)].... [but] he accused us of being schizo with this vs. our java approach, i said he misunderstood [--] that [with Java] we are merely trying to add rich platform support to an interop layer.... this plays well.... at this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. instead we should just quietly grow j [(Microsoft's development tools)] share and assume that people will take more advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps. 150 GX 1332, reprinted in 22 J.A. at 14922-23. 151 Finally, other Microsoft documents confirm that Microsoft intended to deceive Java developers, and predicted that the effect of its actions would be to generate Windows-dependent Java applications that their developers believed would be cross-platform; these documents also indicate that Microsoft's ultimate objective was to thwart Java's threat to Microsoft's monopoly in the market for operating systems. One Microsoft document, for example, states as a strategic goal: Kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market. GX 259, reprinted in 22 J.A. at 14514; see also id. (Cross-platform capability is by far the number one reason for choosing/using Java.) (emphasis in original). 152 Microsoft's conduct related to its Java developer tools served to protect its monopoly of the operating system in a manner not attributable either to the superiority of the operating system or to the acumen of its makers, and therefore was anticompetitive. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft offers no procompetitive explanation for its campaign to deceive developers. Accordingly, we conclude this conduct is exclusionary, in violation of 2 of the Sherman Act. 153