5 ms·

Um, wow, ok. Look, you also have to consider the information that was revealed during the discovery phase of the lawsuit, not just what the DoJ decided to actu

by dlitz 11y ago

Um, wow, ok. Look, you also have to consider the information that was revealed during the discovery phase of the lawsuit, not just what the DoJ decided to actually pursue. Oh, and there has been more than one lawsuit to keep up with. A lot more than one lawsuit: http://groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653 http://groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20050101071006... It's really hard to describe the full impact of what it was like to have everyone in the industry working under the constant fear of getting targeted by Microsoft for more than a decade, and the way that this shaped the market and technology as a whole. Summing it up as "LOL they bundled a browser" betrays a really massive ignorance.

reality_czech 11y ago
Kids on HN don't understand what it was like when Microsoft was the only software company in town with a future. Kind of like Standard Oil back in the Rockefeller days. Apple was dying, Google and Facebook didn't exist, Netscape had its "air supply" cut off and Borland, Delphi, and IBM looked like they were headed for the trash can of history. It's like trying to explain the Soviet Union to someone who was born in the 1990s. It just seems like a bunch of old men with bad haircuts, how scary could that possibly be?
- dlitz 11y ago
  I remember the conversations people had back then. You had basically 3 business models if you were going to run a software company. It was something like: 1. Stay so small/niche that Microsoft won't notice or care about you. 2. Avoid selling software as your primary source of income. This is basically a variant of #1. 3. Try to get bought by Microsoft. Ha, just kidding! Everybody knows that Microsoft doesn't buy stuff that's 'Not Innovated Here'. 3. Gamble. Hope you corner your market and extract as much value as possible from that market before Microsoft figures out what you're doing and enters your market. Or (later) C&D's you over some patents they have. The weird thing is that outside the Bay Area (in some parts of Canada, at least), I still see startups recruiting for a #1-like business model, more-or-less: "The best $SOCIAL_MEDIA iPhone app in $CITY" or whatever. They're not actually afraid of Microsoft anymore, but it's like the mentality didn't go away.
- iolothebard 11y ago
  Lmao kids. I got my first computer in 1983, how about you kid?
iolothebard 11y ago
Laughable. MS was terrified of competition so they always went after competitors. The only reason it was MS instead of IBM is IBM was scared of more government regulation on their business. Apple could have easily had this market and more if they'd opened up. Maybe you didn't work as a developer in the 80s. I used Borland, Watcom and many other vendors along with many other OSes as well. Magically in the mid 1990s you could even run something called Linux on your PC.

by dlitz 11y ago

reality_czech 11y ago

Kids on HN don't understand what it was like when Microsoft was the only software company in town with a future. Kind of like Standard Oil back in the Rockefeller days. Apple was dying, Google and Facebook didn't exist, Netscape had its "air supply" cut off and Borland, Delphi, and IBM looked like they were headed for the trash can of history. It's like trying to explain the Soviet Union to someone who was born in the 1990s. It just seems like a bunch of old men with bad haircuts, how scary could that possibly be?

dlitz 11y ago
I remember the conversations people had back then. You had basically 3 business models if you were going to run a software company. It was something like: 1. Stay so small/niche that Microsoft won't notice or care about you. 2. Avoid selling software as your primary source of income. This is basically a variant of #1. 3. Try to get bought by Microsoft. Ha, just kidding! Everybody knows that Microsoft doesn't buy stuff that's 'Not Innovated Here'. 3. Gamble. Hope you corner your market and extract as much value as possible from that market before Microsoft figures out what you're doing and enters your market. Or (later) C&D's you over some patents they have. The weird thing is that outside the Bay Area (in some parts of Canada, at least), I still see startups recruiting for a #1-like business model, more-or-less: "The best $SOCIAL_MEDIA iPhone app in $CITY" or whatever. They're not actually afraid of Microsoft anymore, but it's like the mentality didn't go away.
iolothebard 11y ago
Lmao kids. I got my first computer in 1983, how about you kid?

iolothebard 11y ago

Laughable. MS was terrified of competition so they always went after competitors. The only reason it was MS instead of IBM is IBM was scared of more government regulation on their business. Apple could have easily had this market and more if they'd opened up. Maybe you didn't work as a developer in the 80s. I used Borland, Watcom and many other vendors along with many other OSes as well. Magically in the mid 1990s you could even run something called Linux on your PC.