Programming Windows: Microsoft and Java (Premium)
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Fearing that Microsoft would try to undermine Java by creating incompatible versions that only ran on Windows, Sun Microsystems insisted that the software giant agree to create the “reference implementations” of the technology for Windows 95 and NT.
Sun was right to be worried: As internal documentation later made public at Microsoft’s antitrust trial revealed, the firm intended all along to usurp Java with Windows-only features that would bifurcate the market and make moot the technology’s cross-platform advantages. Doing so would have the added benefit of harming Netscape because that company’s web browser, called Navigator, relied on Java as well. Only Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer, would be able to run applets created with Microsoft’s specially tailored version of Java.
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