The Effect of Microsoft’s Efforts to Impede Java: The Outcome That They Wanted Came True

D. The Effect of Microsoft’s Efforts to Prevent Java from Diminishing the Applications Barrier to Entry

407. Had Microsoft not been committed to protecting and enhancing the applications barrier to entry, it might still have developed a high-performance JVM and enabled Java developers to call upon Windows APIs. Absent this commitment, though, Microsoft would not have taken efforts to maximize the difficulty of porting Java applications written to its implementation and to drastically limit the ability of developers to write Java applications that would run in both Microsoft’s version of the Windows runtime environment and versions complying with Sun’s standards.

     
     

     Nor would Microsoft have endeavored to limit Navigator’s usage share, to induce ISVs to neither use nor distribute non-Microsoft Java technologies, and to impede the expansion of the Java class libraries, had it not been determined to discourage developers from writing applications that would be easy to port between Windows and other platforms.

     
     

     Microsoft’s dedication to the goal of protecting the applications barrier to entry is highlighted by the fact that its efforts to create incompatibility between its JVM and others resulted in fewer applications being able to run on Windows than otherwise would have. Microsoft felt it was worth obstructing the development of Windows-compatible applications where those applications would have been easy to port to other platforms.

     
     

     It is not clear whether, absent Microsoft’s interference, Sun’s Java efforts would by now have facilitated porting between Windows and other platforms enough to weaken the applications barrier to entry. What is clear, however, is that Microsoft has succeeded in greatly impeding Java’s progress to that end with a series of actions whose sole purpose and effect were to do precisely that.

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This court case Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ) retrieved on 2-13-2023, from justice.gov is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction.