Microsoft, Sun Agree To Extend MSJVM Support For Another Year

On Tuesday, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant and its archrival, Sun Microsystems, announced an agreement under which Microsoft will continue support for the Microsoft's Java Virtual Machine--called MSJVM--until Sept. 30, 2004.

That support was supposed to end Jan 2, 2004, following a settlement reached between the two companies in 2001.

Microsoft removed its MSJVMs in Windows XP Service Pack 1a in the September 2002. The company was expected to pull all support for the MSJVM on Jan. 2 but decided to continue offering support and issuing security fixes on its homegrown JVM until the fall in light of concerns expressed by customers, Microsoft executives said.

As part of its original lawsuit, Sun claimed that Microsoft's implementation of the Java Virtual Machine did not comply with its Java license. The two settled the case in 2001, with Microsoft vowing to end all Java support in 2004 rather than distribute its rival's Java code in Windows.

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While yet another case filed by Sun against Microsoft in 2002 resulted in a court decision that might have forced Microsoft to distribute Sun's native Java with Windows, a U.S. Appeals Court reversed the decision in June.

The nine-month grace period announced Tuesday is designed to help both Sun and Microsoft customers make necessary adjustments to their IT infrastructures, which in some cases have significant investments in the MSJVM, Microsoft executives said.

For instance, the MSJVM exposed functionality not available in Sun's JVM. This means all applications developed using these hooks must be altered.

"There are a number of ways customer have dependencies on Microsoft's Java VM," said Victor Grabner, general manager of Microsoft's developer division. "If a customer or partner developed applications using [Microsoft's] Visual J++, built on Microsoft's MSJVM, and took advantage of Java-COM interoperability, then the dependencies are high and requires a rearchitecting of those applications. The Microsoft JVM exposed functionality not available in the Java runtime."

Customers should make the changes because "we will no longer be able to support it in the future," Grabner said. "If a critical issue is discovered, we couldn't issue a fix."

Many partners said they can download Sun's Java VM for customers in the future and expect there to be little disruption caused by the death of MSJVM, given that development has moved into the Web services realm.

However, executives acknowledged that it was decided to extend support because of concerns expressed by customers who have used the MSJVM. Microsoft launched a number of its own Java-based products in the late 1990s, including Visual J++ and the Microsoft JVM after Sun's programming concept amassed success in the marketplace.

And while the political battle between the archrivals ends up becoming a costly development problem for some customers, Microsoft touted Tuesday's extension as good customer service.

"You may have dependencies that are rather minimal to rather significant," said Matt Pilla, Windows senior product manager, about the impact on customers. "And we did get some customer feedback."