When you choose courts over work...

Things may not always go your way. Sun has invested enormous sums of cash on the various MS suits, with this one being the most critical to them, based on their reactions:

Microsoft received a reprieve on Monday from a court order requiring the company to ship Sun Microsystems' Java software.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Microsoft a stay of a Jan. 21 decision from U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Baltimore, who gave the company 120 days to begin including Sun's latest Java runtime environment in every copy of Windows and Internet Explorer.

Earlier in the day, Microsoft had said that it would comply with Motz's order by beginning to ship an updated version of Windows XP Service Pack 1 that includes a more current Java Runtime Environment from Sun.

....

In a statement sent to reporters, Sun's vice president of legal affairs Lee Patch said: "We regret the 4th Circuit Court's decision. The preliminary injunctions granted by the district court will benefit consumers and the Java community's developers, enterprises and system vendors."

This is what happens when you bet the ranch on lawyers instead of on business plans - you put your fate in someone else's hands - never a great idea, IMHO. Now imagine how much better off Sun might be had they thrown that money into product development, marketing - anything remotely useful.