Java has been overflowing in courtrooms around the country during the past two days. In California, Sun Microsystems was celebrating the Nov. 17 ruling by a California federal judge that Microsoft did indeed violate a contract with Sun over use of its Java programming language. Meanwhile, across the country in Washington, D.C., Microsoft's lawyers in the antitrust case were trying to paint collaboration between Sun and partners Oracle, IBM, and Netscape on Java as the foundation for a cabal aimed at doing Microsoft in.

Through E-mails and other documents, the software giant's lawyers tried to give the impression that Justice uses different definitions when it comes to pursuing anticompetitive behavior: one for Microsoft and another for the rest of the world. It was a case of Microsoft painting itself as the underdog.

The debate over Java, an Internet programming language developed by Sun, is key to one of Justice's arguments that Microsoft has used its dominant position in the software market to inhibit competition. Java, Justice contends, poses a threat to Microsoft because it is designed to let developers write a program once and run it on any operating system, not just Windows. So, Microsoft set out to rewrite a Windows-only version of Java.

This was what the Sun suit in California was aimed at stopping, and the Nov. 17 preliminary order would force Microsoft to maintain Sun's "write once, run anywhere" design. Justice says the California ruling provided "material help" to its case, because it underscored the government's point that Microsoft has tried to "dilute" or "pollute" Java in an effort to protect its Windows monopoly.

COLLUSION? Meanwhile, Microsoft, in the second day of cross-examination of John Soyring, a Justice witness and IBM's director of network computing software, tried to show that the rest of the industry -- and in particular Microsoft's strongest rivals -- follows many of the same practices that Justice calls anticompetitive when Microsoft is involved.

In particular, Microsoft targeted IBM's work with Sun on Java. At one point, trotting out a sign-up sheet on Ritz Carlton letterhead of a meeting between IBM and Sun officials, Microsoft lawyers asked Soyring whether it wasn't odd for the top execs of two competitors to be meeting together. And among the E-mails presented by Microsoft was one sent in August, 1997, by John Thompson, head of IBM's software division, to Sun CEO Scott McNealy outlining details on how to work together on Java. Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale was copied on the E-mail, and in it Thompson suggested getting Novell and Oracle involved as well.

"Do you think it's appropriate, Mr. Soyring, for six of the largest software companies in the world to agree with each other to collude with one another to compete with Microsoft," asked Steve Holley, Microsoft's outside counsel.

Justice didn't take the implications lying down. In its questioning of Soyring, its lawyer asked why IBM wanted to meet on Java. Soyring explained that the meeting was prompted by concern among IBM customers that Java could be split into many different versions, in part because of moves by Microsoft. This meeting, he said, was an attempt to set a standard.

Also on the Java front, Microsoft tried to show that the tools and software it developed for Java are actually superior and give companies and consumers a greater choice. After all, it pointed out, even IBM's own Lotus unit decided to use Microsoft's Java tools.

By Heather Green in Washington