4 ms·
What MS did to Borland was exactly what they did with Netscape 10 years later: use their dominance of the OS to displace competitors in other areas. The only di
by coliveira 5y ago
What MS did to Borland was exactly what they did with Netscape 10 years later: use their dominance of the OS to displace competitors in other areas. The only difference is that computing was a much smaller part of the economy at the time. Things changed with Netscape and other multi-billion dollar web companies, so the government decided to act.
- prirun 5y agoThe big difference to me is that with Netscape, Microsoft distributed a free Internet Explorer with Windows just when Netscape was trying to monetize their software. In the case of Borland, Microsoft wasn't distributing free C compilers to compete with Borland's paid compilers. I think the government decided to act because in the case of the browser, they bundled it with Windows, for free, to kill a competitor. But I agree, having Windows on nearly every desktop in the world gives them a way to launch new products that no other software company enjoys, even to this day, except maybe Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook.