Microsoft and Sun go to court over Java

NEWS Sun and Microsoft appear in a US District Court today to guide judges through their technical understanding on Java. Sun is claiming that Microsoft's Windows 98 includes a version of Java which is incompatible with its own. Sun will also be asking the court to stop Microsoft's Visual J++ 6.0 Java development tool from being shipped until it's compatible. Gary Barnet, analyst at Ovum, explained that whenever Microsoft goes to court it is "very grown-up about it all". He added that whenever a case goes to the wire, it always seems to come out on top. "They don't do it for the hell of it," he claimed. The official hearing is set to start on 10 September. The companies will testify on the two previous days during two four hour sessions.