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Microsoft's claim at the time was that IE couldn't be removed from the system because it had been integrated into the OS. The government was able to show other
by bb88 4y ago
Microsoft's claim at the time was that IE couldn't be removed from the system because it had been integrated into the OS. The government was able to show otherwise. It really had nothing to do with the architecture, but the legal arguments Microsoft's lawyers were making.
But despite that, let's not gloss over about what MS did. If they had been successful there wouldn't have been one web, there would have been two: One for MS (ActiveX and proprietary MS extensions) and one for MacOS/Linux/Netscape/Mozilla/Opera etc. This would have been part of their "Embrace/Extend/Extinguish" strategy they were known for at the time.
- dekhn 4y agoNo, the government didn't show otherwise (in my opinion). They showed you could remove the component, but it degraded essential functionality because IE and the components (HTTP, HTML and form display) depended on the (the OS did, for updates and other applications). I mean the IE the software component, not the browser, because MSFT comingled them at the OS level. At the time, they planned on replacing much of the user interface with web controls, and even today you can see many vestiges of Internet Explorer-like behavior even though IE is gone. i woudl have agreed with you in the past but when I was curous and went back through all the cases I was surprised to see that I think (from a technical perspective) MSFT was completely right to do what they want, and the main issue was that they simply didn't understand how to win a case in court.