Judge Sees Microsoft's Point of View in Trial

Dec 11 1998

Just when it looked like Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson had become a scrooge to Redmond, denying any holiday cheer, he made a reversal yesterday and played Santa, asking a question of Java maven James Gosling that seemed to come from Microsoft 's viewpoint. "A goodly portion of the cross-examination had to do with documentary evidence that said Microsoft grasped the significance of the work you were doing and ran with it," the judge summed up for the Sun exec. "They simply couldn't wait for you to catch up." Gosling responded by saying Microsoft had made improvements, but only as to how Java ran on its own Windows OS. The DoJ's David Boies admitted the judge was impressed by Microsoft's improvements, but was also impressed by Gosling's answer.

News.com, MSNBC, ZDNet and The Washington Post all led with the judge's Microsoft-leaning questions. News.com's Dan Goodin said the judge's tart question came as a big surprise in the courtroom, while MSNBC's Barton Crockett said that although most see Jackson as critical of MS, the judge "surprised the courtroom with comments that seemed sympathetic to Microsoft," and made the normally unflappable Boies look rattled and flustered. Goodin quoted Boies as admitting the judge's question "reflects the fact that he was impressed with a number of points Microsoft made in its cross-examination." And ZDNet's Will Rodger said the question made it seem like Microsoft's battle against Java was being fought "fair and square."

Other outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News and Wired News led with Gosling's grisly depiction of dealing with Microsoft: "Our view was that when Microsoft was holding out its hand, there was a knife in it, and Microsoft was expecting us to grab the blade."

The Times' Steve Lohr did a nice job summing up the way Sun and Microsoft had to warily cooperate, "like two scorpions circling each other." Lohr said they joined to work on a common interest in Java, but there was always more antagonism than cooperation between the rivals. So what made Microsoft so crucial to Sun? The Times scribe mentions an e-mail from former Sun CTO Eric Schmidt, now chair at Novell , who wrote in '96: "[Microsoft] will ship 50 million-plus copies of Java next year."

The Merc's online legal eagle Rich Gray, who had summed up why he thought Microsoft was in trouble overall, offered ways the company could win the case - or at least build for appeal. He said the software giant has two procedural weapons: contest the late entry of evidence relating to the alleged Netscape browser-divide meeting, which would cut a huge hole in the case; and question the fairness of having limited witnesses and time, and of the gratuitous airing of the Gates videotape. Though many observers seem to think Microsoft will lose to this judge, Gray said it's important to remember that "any time you walk into a courthouse, strange things can happen."

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