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Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happene

Microsoft included it for free with their (at that time monopoly market share) operating system. Entire Divisions of Netscape were terminated when that happened. It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platform) - so they eliminated it (Cut off Netscape's Air supply) - by giving the browser away for free with their operating system - and, because everyone (for most reasonable definitions of everyone) was running Microsoft's operating system on their desktop, there was no longer any need to buy it from Netscape. It probably didn't help that, by 1998, the Netscape client had a pretty significant technical debt, was no longer a nimble browser, and, if I recall correctly, had been rebranded as "Netscape Communicator" and had all this crufty email/calendar/editing software slapped onto it. If all you wanted was a browser, Netscape was not necessarily the goto product anymore. Even simple things like rendering large tables could freeze up the browser. And it crashed. A lot. This was before people realized how valuable controlling the search engine/first hop to the Internet would be. Netscape (Mike Homer?) finally realized that, with it's dying breath, the most valuable asset it had wasn't all the Enterprise Software (Directory Servers, Certificate Servers, Enterprise Web Server, Application Servers, Business Servers) - but, Ironically, "www.netscape.com" - sold to AOL for $4Billion (much of the software being split between AOL and Sun in the ill fated iPlanet experiment) - and, on the last day of trading, was worth $10 Billion (mostly due to to a rise in the stock value of AOL - the deal's value was heavily related to the AOL stock price)

melling 14y ago
"At that time monopoly market share (operating system)" What do you think Microsoft has now? Microsoft isn't quite as lethal at this time, but in all honesty, they still dominate. It's funny to see people complain about Google's 70% search monopoly and Apple's 20-25% iOS walled garden, but 9/10 of the people in the world buy PC's with Microsoft Windows.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Agreed that most people still have a Windows OS in front of them. But the wild card on the upswing now is mobile - which Microsoft has very little strength in. Also, web applications provide real diversity of application experience beyond the Windows OS. For a lot of people, applications like email, twitter, photo-sharing, game playing, social networking etc.. are no longer tied to a particular desktop client operating system. Indeed, Social Networking, where people spend enormous amounts of time, is an example where I would say the Desktop OS is as irrelevant as your BIOS.
- moreati 14y ago
  At the time the web-browsing market was a subset of the PC/laptop market - that's no longer the case with smartphones and tablets selling so fast.
- simonh 14y ago
  Whereas the iPad doesn't count because it's just a toy that's only used for 'consumption'. First they ignore you.... The reality is about a quarter of global computer sales are Macs, iPads or Android tablets and all those categories are growing rapidly. If you include smartphones in the equation, as some aggressively pro-mobile (but not necessarily wrong) observers do, Microsoft already has a minority platform share.
tzs 14y ago
I think people overestimate the effect of bundling. As you note, in 1997 and earlier browser software was sold like spreadsheet or word processor software. By 1997, IE was clearly the better browser technically. It was far less buggy, and it implemented much more of Netscape's proprietary HTML than Netscape implemented of IE's proprietary HTML. The sales numbers of the retail boxes for both from CompUSA, Egghead, Computer City, and so on reflected this. IE was massively outselling Netscape. Sure, when bundling came alone later, it didn't help Netscape, but I think by that point they were already past the tipping point.
eze 14y ago
People paid $50+/copy for their browser. But this stopped precisely in early 1998. Such a major gain for IE from 1997 to 1998 (or before) would have made more sense based on this aspect. [1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html
- ghshephard 14y ago
  I remember those days vividly. How do you compete with "Free?" And, unlike today, where an alternative browser is just a click-away on a high speed link for even the average layperson, the vast majority of the world back then (geeks not included) got their browser through the channel that delivered software to them - and, for most computers users, the operating system was the ultimate channel. Downloading something as huge as an entire browser was not likely undertaken. Your average user had something like a 56 Kilobit modem back in 1998. So, when the IE browser was free, and bundled through every-channel Microsoft could get their hands on - it was the end of times. Entire buildings on East Middlefield road, Mountain View associated with the consumer/business sales of Netscape Communicator/Navigator were shuttered. The layoffs were apocalyptic. I'll give it to Microsoft, they certainly cut off Netscape's air supply. Of course, as a result of their actions, The United States Government decided they had violated elements of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 - in particular tying, and that resulted in a decade of oversight that may have done them more harm than Netscape ever would have.
  - eze 14y ago
    A very insightful reply. Thanks.
recoiledsnake 14y ago
>It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platform) - so they eliminated it (Cut off Netscape's Air supply) - by giving the browser away for free with their operating system - and, because everyone (for most reasonable definitions of everyone) was running Microsoft's operating system on their desktop, there was no longer any need to buy it from Netscape. And that in turn lead to further addinng fuel to the internet by lowering the barrier to entry for users leading to a feedback loop. $50+ was more than a months salary in many countries. I am sure many divisions in RIM and Nokia were cut because of Google "dumping" Android for free by leveraging profits from their search(not to mention bundling Chrome with Flash and Java updates leading to the charts in the article). But Android does lead to more people accessing the internet through smartphones and that is a huge net gain to all of us regardless of a few companies getting hurt short term.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  Google has competition in Search. I don't think anyone claims they are a monopoly in search. Powerful position, yes. Monopoly, no. Also, the issue wasn't, "Free", or "Leveraging profits", it was "Tying", which, in certain cases when you are a monopoly, turns out to be problematic when one is trying to maintain the appearance of a competitive marketplace. The US Government wasn't there to protect the companies, it was there to protect customers. I, for one, am happy that Microsoft wasn't given free reign to do anything it wanted after it had established a monopoly position on the desktop. Likewise, if Apple is ever able to achieve 90%+ market share on mobile, many of their practices today (such as giving their own developers preferential access to private APIs, or being able to run outside of a sandbox) should be reigned in.

melling 14y ago

"At that time monopoly market share (operating system)" What do you think Microsoft has now? Microsoft isn't quite as lethal at this time, but in all honesty, they still dominate. It's funny to see people complain about Google's 70% search monopoly and Apple's 20-25% iOS walled garden, but 9/10 of the people in the world buy PC's with Microsoft Windows.

ghshephard 14y ago
Agreed that most people still have a Windows OS in front of them. But the wild card on the upswing now is mobile - which Microsoft has very little strength in. Also, web applications provide real diversity of application experience beyond the Windows OS. For a lot of people, applications like email, twitter, photo-sharing, game playing, social networking etc.. are no longer tied to a particular desktop client operating system. Indeed, Social Networking, where people spend enormous amounts of time, is an example where I would say the Desktop OS is as irrelevant as your BIOS.
moreati 14y ago
At the time the web-browsing market was a subset of the PC/laptop market - that's no longer the case with smartphones and tablets selling so fast.
simonh 14y ago
Whereas the iPad doesn't count because it's just a toy that's only used for 'consumption'. First they ignore you.... The reality is about a quarter of global computer sales are Macs, iPads or Android tablets and all those categories are growing rapidly. If you include smartphones in the equation, as some aggressively pro-mobile (but not necessarily wrong) observers do, Microsoft already has a minority platform share.

tzs 14y ago

I think people overestimate the effect of bundling. As you note, in 1997 and earlier browser software was sold like spreadsheet or word processor software. By 1997, IE was clearly the better browser technically. It was far less buggy, and it implemented much more of Netscape's proprietary HTML than Netscape implemented of IE's proprietary HTML. The sales numbers of the retail boxes for both from CompUSA, Egghead, Computer City, and so on reflected this. IE was massively outselling Netscape. Sure, when bundling came alone later, it didn't help Netscape, but I think by that point they were already past the tipping point.

eze 14y ago

People paid $50+/copy for their browser. But this stopped precisely in early 1998. Such a major gain for IE from 1997 to 1998 (or before) would have made more sense based on this aspect. [1] http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-207681.html

ghshephard 14y ago
I remember those days vividly. How do you compete with "Free?" And, unlike today, where an alternative browser is just a click-away on a high speed link for even the average layperson, the vast majority of the world back then (geeks not included) got their browser through the channel that delivered software to them - and, for most computers users, the operating system was the ultimate channel. Downloading something as huge as an entire browser was not likely undertaken. Your average user had something like a 56 Kilobit modem back in 1998. So, when the IE browser was free, and bundled through every-channel Microsoft could get their hands on - it was the end of times. Entire buildings on East Middlefield road, Mountain View associated with the consumer/business sales of Netscape Communicator/Navigator were shuttered. The layoffs were apocalyptic. I'll give it to Microsoft, they certainly cut off Netscape's air supply. Of course, as a result of their actions, The United States Government decided they had violated elements of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 - in particular tying, and that resulted in a decade of oversight that may have done them more harm than Netscape ever would have.
- eze 14y ago
  A very insightful reply. Thanks.

recoiledsnake 14y ago

>It may be hard for people to imagine now, but back in 1996/1997, selling browser software was like selling spreadsheet or word processing software. People paid $50+/copy for their browser. It was a threat to Microsoft (potential alternative application platform) - so they eliminated it (Cut off Netscape's Air supply) - by giving the browser away for free with their operating system - and, because everyone (for most reasonable definitions of everyone) was running Microsoft's operating system on their desktop, there was no longer any need to buy it from Netscape. And that in turn lead to further addinng fuel to the internet by lowering the barrier to entry for users leading to a feedback loop. $50+ was more than a months salary in many countries. I am sure many divisions in RIM and Nokia were cut because of Google "dumping" Android for free by leveraging profits from their search(not to mention bundling Chrome with Flash and Java updates leading to the charts in the article). But Android does lead to more people accessing the internet through smartphones and that is a huge net gain to all of us regardless of a few companies getting hurt short term.

ghshephard 14y ago
Google has competition in Search. I don't think anyone claims they are a monopoly in search. Powerful position, yes. Monopoly, no. Also, the issue wasn't, "Free", or "Leveraging profits", it was "Tying", which, in certain cases when you are a monopoly, turns out to be problematic when one is trying to maintain the appearance of a competitive marketplace. The US Government wasn't there to protect the companies, it was there to protect customers. I, for one, am happy that Microsoft wasn't given free reign to do anything it wanted after it had established a monopoly position on the desktop. Likewise, if Apple is ever able to achieve 90%+ market share on mobile, many of their practices today (such as giving their own developers preferential access to private APIs, or being able to run outside of a sandbox) should be reigned in.