Apple and Microsoft "threatened to sue Sun"

 

Gallery

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 10 Mar 2010 at 11:22

Sun's former chief executive has claimed that both Apple and Microsoft tried to sue the company for patent infringement.

Writing on his his 'What I couldn't say' blog, Jonathan Schwartz related a meeting between Sun executives and Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, which could have put the future of the free OpenOffice project in doubt.

"Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had flown in over a weekend to meet with Scott McNealy, Sun's then CEO – who asked me and Greg Papadopoulos [Sun's CTO] - to accompany him," said Schwartz.

Bill skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, 'Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice

"As we sat down in our Menlo Park conference room, Bill skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, 'Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice. We’re happy to get you under license.' That was code for 'We’ll go away if you pay us a royalty for every download' – the digital version of a protection racket."

It was a situation Schwartz neatly described as "royalty bearing free software? Jumbo shrimp. (Oxymoron.)".

According to Schwartz, Sun promptly pointed out the similarities between Microsoft's .NET framework and Java, bringing the meeting to a close.

Bite of the Apple

The blog also relates a phone conversation between Steve Jobs and Schwartz, in which the Apple chief executive threatened to sue Sun over the graphical effects used in a prototype Linux OS called Project Looking Glass.

Schwartz claims to have responded with a few threats of his own. "Last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix," Schwartz replied. "I think Sun has a few OS patents, too." His comments were apparently met with silence from Jobs.

Schwartz left Sun in February after the company's acquisition by Oracle. While it's unclear whether Schwartz jumped or was pushed, his farewell blog post suggested a hint of bitterness, with Schwartz signing off "Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Oracle Corporation."

We've contacted both Apple and Microsoft for their response to this story.