Judge Likens Microsoft To Tonya Harding

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, thinking aloud from the bench, said there was a 'social value' in being able to participate fairly in a market undistorted by a competitor. He asked rhetorically whether an injunction could be granted against Microsoft for non-economic reasons.

'Capitalism is about making money, but it's also about something else. It's also about pride of product,' said Motz, who made the comparison between the rival figure skaters, as well as a similar link with a baseball game in which one team has a camera in centerfield with which it obtained pitching signs.

Attorneys gave their closing arguments Thursday in the three-day hearing on Sun's request to force Microsoft to carry the latest version of Sun's Java programming language in Windows.

Without an injunction, Sun faces 'imminent harm' and can't remain competitive in a market dominated by Microsoft, Sun attorney Lloyd R. Day said.

Microsoft has been trying to advance its own .NET program by violating contracts and trying to destroy the value of Java, he said. Day said Microsoft has tried to seize a competitive advantage by 'mugging its principal competitor.'

An attorney for Microsoft said Sun's attorneys 'terribly muddled' the issues and misstated the law.

David Tulchin said both Java and .NET face a competitive environment for years to come. Tulchin said Sun had failed to pursue its own distribution mechanisms. He also said there was no evidence that Sun's Java language faced imminent harm.

'The only thing we have here is speculation about what might happen in the future,' Tulchin said.

Earlier Thursday, University of Chicago economics professor Kevin Murphy testified that Microsoft's distribution advantage isn't enough to justify forcing the company to include Java.

Sun says Microsoft gained an unfair advantage by shipping its system _ used by more than 90 percent of the world's personal computers _ with an outdated version of Java that's inconsistent for its users.

So software developers are turning to .NET instead of gambling on Microsoft's spotty distribution of Java, Sun attorneys told Motz.

Microsoft attorneys counter that at least half the world's software developers already use Java.

Sun says the injunction is necessary; by the time the company catches up, after its $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft is settled, it will be too far behind to compete, attorneys argued.

Sun accuses Microsoft of intentionally creating incompatibilities with competitors' products. It says antitrust violations by Microsoft forced other companies to distribute or use products incompatible with Java.

Michael Lacovara, a Microsoft attorney, said Sun didn't have the right to piggyback on Microsoft just because the company was successful.

The case is one of four private antitrust lawsuits that followed a federal judge's ruling in a suit brought by the Justice Department that Microsoft acted as an illegal monopoly based on its dominance in desktop operating systems.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved a settlement in that case that bars Microsoft from retaliating against or threatening computer manufacturers. The settlement also compels Microsoft to share key technical data with competitors to allow their programs to run more smoothly with Microsoft operating systems.

Motz said he didn't know when he would issue his ruling.

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