Microsoft will stop selling a number of its older products by mid-December as a result of a legal settlement with Sun Microsystems, in a dispute over Java. Among these are almost all versions of Windows 98, Office 2000, NT 4 Terminal Server Edition, Office XP Developer Edition and SQL Server 7.
The products include a version of the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that can no longer be sold in terms of the agreement. Whereas Java allows a program to run on any operating system, Microsoft`s JVM allows it to run Java on Windows. The disagreement came because Microsoft`s Java is allegedly incompatible with Sun`s Java.
<B>Retiree list</B>
The following products will no longer be available to customers in 2003:
Office XP Developer
Visio 2000
BackOffice Server 2000
Office 2000 Developer
Office 2000 Tools
Office 2000 Multilingual
Office 2000 Premium SR-1
Office 2000 Service Pack 2
Outlook 2000
Project 2000
SQL Server 7
SQL Server 7 Service Pack 3
Embedded Visual Tools 3.0
Visual Studio 6 MSDE
IE 5.5
MapPoint 2002
Visual Studio 6.0 SP3 and SP5
Windows 98
Windows 98 Y2K
Windows 98 Resource Kit
Windows 98 SP1 (all win98 except SE)
Windows NT 4.0
ISA Server 2000
Visual Basic for (Alpha Systems)
The following products will be updated with Java-compliant versions before the end of year deadline:
Office XP Professional with FrontPage
Publisher 2002
Windows NT 4.0
Small Business Server 2000
As part of the settlement, Microsoft paid Sun $20 million and agreed to retire products that contain its JVM.
Microsoft has reportedly said that although it may, after a an extension, support and modify its JVM until 30 September next year, beyond that it cannot make even security enhancements. This reason is given as the motive for stopping the products.
Colin Erasmus, security lead at Microsoft South Africa, says Microsoft`s agreement to phase out the MS JVM has, among others, been "available on our Web site since it was signed in January 2001. We took several steps following 2001, including...phasing it out from existing products and no longer including it in future products. Our extension of the licence also provided customers with another year to complete the transition - until October 2004.
"Microsoft will continue to respond to any security issues and provide fixes until October 2004. There is no immediate call to action for consumers. [We are] working to offer transition options and updates before October 2004."
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