Computer Company Rivalry

¶ … battles of the C# and Java wars between Sun and Microsoft. The winner will greatly affect the entire internet which in turn means they are in control of major part of our modern world. The net offers us a plethora of possibilities and opportunities. For example, I know that I can't live without my daily emails, chat and of course I am a big fan of music downloads and bargain shopping.

The future of not only information technology is tied to the internet, but business in general as more companies move to the likes of the net for B2B and b2c marketing. The bottom line is that the internet is really comprised of nothing more that physical hardware that runs on intricate software with routers and Local Area Networks (LANs) sprinkled around the world. Basically, the company that grabs a monopoly hold over the rest of the industry can make a whole lot of money.

So behind the scenes, there will be constant battles going on between companies like Sun and Microsoft over who has the best programming software, who stole the rights from the other and who will dictate the rules, copyrights and patents. The winner of these software battles stands to make a fortune because the internet and computer technology in general are the foundation of our future.

To point out just how critical controlling software rights on the internet are, consider that it is estimated that file swapping sites like KaZaA have more than one hundred sixty million people worldwide downloading at least one version of their software and of those millions, over sixty million people worldwide, twenty-two million in the United States, consider themselves regular and loyal users of the KaZaA software. Now, that is only one website -- census figures such as these create a demand for new and faster software from Microsoft and Sun.

There have been some pretty intense public interchanges between Microsoft and Sun concerning the design of Microsoft's J++ and C# and Sun's Java. For example, "Sun has charged Microsoft with releasing a "polluted" version of Java in its Windows 98 software and Java development tools.

The hearings this week are part of Sun's request for a preliminary injunction that would force Microsoft to stop shipping those products until it complies with Sun's Java specifications." (Niccolai) In a statement made during the questioning of evidentiary hearings in Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft, Sun Microsystems' Vice President James Gosling, a co-creator of the Java programming language, informed the court that in his opinion "Microsoft's Java technology does not allow developers to write applications that will run on any platform.

There's a tight interlock between the Java technology Microsoft uses in its development tools and the software program -- known as a Java Virtual Machine -- it has developed to run those Java applications." (Niccolai) These types of accusations are regular occurrences as Microsoft also countered.

"The war kicked in when Microsoft, a mere two days after the settlement, fired back with Java User Migration Path (JUMP) to .NET, a set of products to help developers migrate Java applications to the .NET platform." (Sullivan and Scannell) The key in this battle is that whichever company wins the battle, they will dictate the direction of software development.