Four days after posting a note to a community site specifying its intent to retire a number of its flagship products as a result of the Sun Java lawsuit, Microsoft has decided to extend the cut-off date by a week. On Monday, Microsoft posted a new note to its Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) community site, stating that the company is now planning to ax certain products from all Microsoft sales channels starting December 23.
The products targeted for phase-out are those that embed Microsoft"s Java Virtual Machine technology. MSDN Subscriber Downloads program manager Andy Boyd had posted a note on December 4 stating that Microsoft intended to remove Windows 98, SQL Server 7 and a number of versions of Office 2000 from MSDN downloads and all other Microsoft sales channels. He cited Microsoft"s legal settlement with Sun Microsystems over Java as the impetus for the move.