3 ms·
> Why was Microsoft's installing Internet Explorer on their own OS a cardinal sin worthy of punishment It probably wasn't, which is why the government didn't f
by twblalock 6y ago
> Why was Microsoft's installing Internet Explorer on their own OS a cardinal sin worthy of punishment
It probably wasn't, which is why the government didn't follow through with the breakup of Microsoft.
Shortly after the government claimed that Microsoft was a monopoly that could not be competed with, Microsoft was outcompeted in a number of areas that the regulators never anticipated, including Google Chrome taking over the browser market, as well as other areas Microsoft directly competed in such as search and smartphones.
It makes you wonder, how can a company be an unassailable monopoly yet get its butt kicked by other companies competing in the same market?
- greedo 6y ago<Shortly after the government claimed that Microsoft was a monopoly that could not be competed with> The DOJ sued Microsoft in the mid 1990s. Chrome came out in 2008.
- twblalock 6y agoThe courts ruled that Microsoft should be broken up in 2000, and the case was settled without a breakup about a year later. The cases in the early 1990s were not even about the web browser, which did not exist yet -- they were about Windows licensing agreements from the 1980s.
- greedo 6y agoSo again, Chrome was released in 2008, seven years after the settlement. There was no ready alternative to Explorer at the time of the settlement.
- twblalock 6y agoNetscape Navigator and Communicator, Mozilla (the original one), and Opera all existed at the time and were trivially easy to obtain.
- greedo 6y agoNeither Netscape Navigator nor Opera were free. Mozilla took over a decade to become competitive. It wasn't until Safari and Chrome came along that there was any real competition to IE. IE was the web for a long long time.