The US Justice Department has apparently had its eye on the tense relationship between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems for quite some time now. "Months and months ago," a Sun spokeswoman said Tuesday, the Justice Department issued Sun civil investigative demands requesting information about Microsoft for its ever-expanding probe into the software superpower's business dealings.
Add those CIDs to a growing list that includes others issued to content providers for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 Active Desktop. More recently, it was revealed that Justice has roped America Online and MCI Communications into its probe, apparently hoping to find whether Redmond convinced the online access providers to favor Internet Explorer over Netscape's Navigator.
Sun sued Microsoft last October for allegedly violating its Java license by attempting to co-opt the multiplatform programming language, seen by many as a threat to Microsoft's operating system dominance. Whether the government sees that issue as a piece that will fit neatly into its anti-trust puzzle remains to be seen. "The lawyers have not revealed the scope or content of [the Justice Department's] requests," the Sun spokeswoman said.
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Help for spam sufferers: A new version of the popular free email software Sendmail will offer powerful new anti-Spam tools, The New York Times reports in a story that also hypes the formation of Sendmail Inc., a commercial enterprise.
Eric Allman's version 8.9 would take on spam by giving system administrators the ability to track down the real addresses of spammers and thus reject their offerings.
As for Sendmail the company, Sun Microsystems founders Andreas Bechtolscheim and William Joy have coughed up $1.25 million to back the venture which, in addition to developing the free Sendmail, will sell software and services to businesses, The Times said.
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Fruits of their labors: Yahoo and MCI Communications on Monday officially unveiled the product of their joint venture, first announced in January, to provide nationwide Internet dial-up access with an easy navigation interface for newbies. The new service, called "Yahoo Online powered by MCI Internet," aims to cut other access providers like America Online out of the loop.
Yahoo's Web site is already one of the most popular spots on the Internet, but surfers previously had to use another Internet service provider to get there. Now they'll be able to make their initial connection to the Internet through the Yahoo service.
