Microsoft may rue the day it chose to hammer a company which, at
the time, mirrored its own early days
Netscape, the company that by the mid-1990s ruled the Internet
browser market, was like a red rag to a bull as far as Microsoft
was concerned. After taking the scalp of IBM in the operating
system market, Microsoft found it too tempting to resist targeting
small-fry Netscape.
With the launch of Windows 95 came the bundled Internet Explorer
browser, which gave Microsoft the lion's share of the browser
market.
Netscape complained to the Government about Microsoft allegedly
forcing PC manufacturers to install the browser, and Netscape
won.
Although Microsoft eventually won an appeal, Netscape had set
off a chain of events. Sun Microsystems took Microsoft to court
over Java solutions designed for Microsoft products. Meanwhile IBM
alleged that Microsoft tried to stop it using Windows 95 for its
PCs, unless it stopped offering the OS/2 operating system. It said
Microsoft's margins on Windows 98 were too high.
As Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said after the final
judgment this week, "Our intense focus on moving forward has at
times been threatening and our passion for this has been
misinterpreted."