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

Heading: The threat to Intel

Text: 154 The District Court held that Microsoft also acted unlawfully with respect to Java by using its monopoly power to prevent firms such as Intel from aiding in the creation of cross-platform interfaces. Conclusions of Law, at 43. In 1995 Intel was in the process of developing a highperformance, Windows-compatible JVM. Microsoft wanted Intel to abandon that effort because a fast, cross-platform JVM would threaten Microsoft's monopoly in the operating system market. At an August 1995 meeting, Microsoft's Gates told Intel that its cooperation with Sun and Netscape to develop a Java runtime environment ... was one of the issues threatening to undermine cooperation between Intel and Microsoft. Findings of Fact p 396. Three months later, Microsoft's Paul Maritz told a senior Intel executive that Intel's [adaptation of its multimedia software to comply with] Sun's Java standards was as inimical to Microsoft as Microsoft's support for non-Intel microprocessors would be to Intel. Id. p 405. 155 Intel nonetheless continued to undertake initiatives related to Java. By 1996 Intel had developed a JVM designed to run well ... while complying with Sun's cross-platform standards. Id. p 396. In April of that year, Microsoft again urged Intel not to help Sun by distributing Intel's fast, Suncompliant JVM. Id. And Microsoft threatened Intel that if it did not stop aiding Sun on the multimedia front, then Microsoft would refuse to distribute Intel technologies bundled with Windows. Id. p 404. 156 Intel finally capitulated in 1997, after Microsoft delivered the coup de grace. 157 [O]ne of Intel's competitors, called AMD, solicited support from Microsoft for its 3DX technology.... Microsoft's Allchin asked Gates whether Microsoft should support 3DX, despite the fact that Intel would oppose it. Gates responded: If Intel has a real problem with us supporting this then they will have to stop supporting Java Multimedia the way they are. I would gladly give up supporting this if they would back off from their work on JAVA. 158 Id. p 406. 159 Microsoft's internal documents and deposition testimony confirm both the anticompetitive effect and intent of its actions. See, e.g., GX 235, reprinted in 22 J.A. at 14502 (Microsoft executive, Eric Engstrom, included among Microsoft's goals for Intel: Intel to stop helping Sun create Java 160 Multimedia APIs, especially ones that run well ... on Windows.); Deposition of Eric Engstrom at 179 (We were successful [in convincing Intel to stop aiding Sun] for some period of time.). 161 Microsoft does not deny the facts found by the District Court, nor does it offer any procompetitive justification for pressuring Intel not to support cross-platform Java. Microsoft lamely characterizes its threat to Intel as advice. The District Court, however, found that Microsoft's advice to Intel to stop aiding cross-platform Java was backed by the threat of retaliation, and this conclusion is supported by the evidence cited above. Therefore we affirm the conclusion that Microsoft's threats to Intel were exclusionary, in violation of 2 of the Sherman Act.