Microsoft wouldn't have bothered if Sun hadn't done the Windows jdk and jvm in the first place. If there were no Java on Windows, it wouldn't be perceived as a

Microsoft wouldn't have bothered if Sun hadn't done the Windows jdk and jvm in the first place. If there were no Java on Windows, it wouldn't be perceived as a threat that needed to be co-opted. Nor would there have been as much hype about Java if it hadn't been on Windows. Before Java 1.0 shipped in early 1996 (for Windows and Solaris), there were a number of publicly available betas on Windows, which is how the hype was generated. Also, my recollection is that it was never the case that Microsoft's was the only JVM on Windows, or that Sun stopped work on their Windows JVM. The two coexisted. There was no point at which Microsoft was the only source of a JVM on Windows.