MS Anti-trust suit with IE

[El_Cu_Guy]

2. Microsoft, as quickly as they can, license the Mosaic (pre-netscape) code and build a browser around it. It's pretty horrible until version 3 or so, but it's free. Later versions tie into the Windows Explorer shell of Windows 95, and don't allow you to remove it.

Quick? Microsoft was a late comer to the Internet playground. There was nothing quick about it. Microsoft licensed the Mosaic code base from Spyglass in 1994. I'm not sure why you included the phrase (pre-netscape) as the Mosaic web browser development was still active though not as well maintain as during the time Andreesen was part of the team before being persuaded to join Jim Clark of Silicon Graphics to "develop their own" browser client.

Yes Internet Explorer was horrid up to and including version 3. However, version 4.0 did not integrate itself in the explorer shell. Once installed IE4 would replace the existing shell with one based on Internet Explorer. Windows 98 would take this a step further an become intertwined in the manner you mention. The core technologies behind IE would become the shall with IE acting as a UI wrapper.

3. From Windows 98 and onwards, Microsoft bundles IE with Windows, had it everywhere in the shell and highly visible

Windows 95 onward you mean. However, it wasn't until 98 in which MS touted this new "advancement" so highly.

and forces OEMs to not include Netscape, as well as have an Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, or else they will charge much, much more for their Windows license. This is what they were convicted for, by the way.

Microsoft never "forced" anyone to do anything. What they were originally charged with (in the first MS-DoJ case) was offering discounts to OEMs who would not include Netscape. They were successful in convincing them as the full license price was much much higher.

They're also butchering HTML (Although Netscape did this as well) so many websites will only work with IE on windows.

Not initially. To ensure that IE worked well with Netscape webs server software Microsoft followed standards but identified their browser as Mozilla.

In the end, Netscape would argue that the beloved public village of standards was threatened by Microsoft, and Netscape had only destroyed the village in order to try to save it.

Microsoft also sees Java as a threat, so they hack together a way to run full-blown Windows programs in IE (ActiveX), not really any care for security, just trying to get it adopted as quickly as possible.

Your getting ahead of yourself. Initially it was created offer interactive applets in web pages to provide dynamic content. Later ActiveX would evolve into the beast it is and its potential would become more visible.

[vcv]

Good, I don't have a problem with Opera personally, the original post was more to illustrate how many bugs IE had compared to the other 2 popular browsers. :)

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Well that's a given :cool:

El_Cu_Guy, beautiful post.

Another point I will try and make. Since you can uninstall Safari, people don't like that analogy. How about the desktop search tool that will be in tiger? Can you uninstall that? No? Well isn't that unfair to any competition?

My point simply is that it is asinine to tell a software company what they can and can not include in their own products. Isn't Explorer unfair to competing shells and file managers since you can't uninstall and it's integrated?

[tapo]

Windows 95 onward you mean. However, it wasn't until 98 in which MS touted this new "advancement" so highly.

Thanks for clearing that up, I never used Windows 95 all too frequently, so I wasn't sure if Explorer was bundled.

Microsoft never "forced" anyone to do anything. What they were originally charged with (in the first MS-DoJ case) was offering discounts to OEMs who would not include Netscape. They were successful in convincing them as the full license price was much much higher.

The PC market is extremely competitive price wise, so in order for any company to stay competitive, they would want to get the cheapest OS price possible, no? Microsoft essentially forced them to drop Netscape in order to continue to have low prices.

Not initially. To ensure that IE worked well with Netscape webs server software Microsoft followed standards but identified their browser as Mozilla.

Also true, but there is no denying that the two of them both showed a lack of care for HTML standards during the browser wars, specifically the 4.x releases of both.

Your getting ahead of yourself. Initially it was created offer interactive applets in web pages to provide dynamic content. Later ActiveX would evolve into the beast it is and its potential would become more visible.

Isn't that what I meant as a way to compete with Java? Both being a way to offer interactive applets in web pages, however ActiveX only supporting Internet Explorer and Win32 instead of being cross platform?

[Sn1p3t]

The debate isn't whether or not IE can be shipped with Windows. The debate is why it cannot be uninstalled. The reason is that a lot of it's CORE code is shared with Explorer. They were simply forced to make IE seem to be "uninstalled" with the "Set Program Access Defaults" option that was added in XP SP1 and above.

I simply wish Microsoft would move a lot of their core code away from IE, and allow an option to uninstall it, as well as Windows Media Player. It would be great to have them ship with XP, and even install by default, but make an option to uninstall it. It would save a lot of legal trouble. I'm actually an IE user, so don't take that comment as a Firefox fanboy routine :D

[El_Cu_Guy]

Isn't that what I meant as a way to compete with Java? Both being a way to offer interactive applets in web pages, however ActiveX only supporting Internet Explorer and Win32 instead of being cross platform?

While ActiveX was meant to provide dynamic web content, Java's purpose was to be a complete development platform. Write once run anywhere meant that you could write the code once and it would run on any OS that ran the VM. Essentially you could write entire applications of rJava and they would run on Windows, MacOS, Unix or whatever. At one time Microsoft even applauded Sun and touted how one day MS Office would be a Java based app. Of course MS is full of it. One need only look at their praises of OS/2 for that.

The MSJVM however, was a real hinderance to the Java platform, especially in the consumer market. "It doesn't run right, Java sucks". After a while Java would have a lot of difficulty moving beyond silly web applets. It wouldn't be until this information was widely publicized would be how much Microsoft had shaped their impressions of Java.

[Cyranthus]

Besides, if IE wasn't shipped with windows.. how could you download another browser?!  You'd have to go to the store and PAY for Netscape, or order Opera from someone elses computer.

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good point

[betasp]

good point

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Most venders packaged netscape (at least Gatewayy, Dell and Acer did)... but after IE 3, MS required (REQUIRED!) venders to install IE and penalized them if they installed any other client in addition to IE.

[PseudoRandomDragon]

Besides, if IE wasn't shipped with windows.. how could you download another browser?!  You'd have to go to the store and PAY for Netscape, or order Opera from someone elses computer.

The OEM would include another browser, or you could download it with the builtin ftp client, or you could get it on CD, or you could use your ISPs browser

[vcv]

Most venders packaged netscape (at least Gatewayy, Dell and Acer did)... but after IE 3, MS required (REQUIRED!) venders to install IE and penalized them if they installed any other client in addition to IE.

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Read the thread. It was said that Microsoft offered discounts for NOT including Netscape. That's not punishing. It's unfairly giving a discount to OEMs who don't, but it's not punishing. But again, that's not what this thread is about.

[vertigosity]

And when you're building 1000 machines a day, and you can save $100 by picking one competitor's product over the other (regardless of whether that $100 is a synthetic savings), saving $100000 is a requirement, because without it, the shareholders might not get their extra pennies - anyone who stands in the way of their extra pennies is likely to be a candidate in the next corporate downsizing. And in the world of business, it's all about the shareholders, **** the technology and people buying it.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Well, the main problem was MS made IE a included component, that you couldn't not install it, and once it was installed, you couldn't remove it.

And when people talk about apple getting sued, even if apple had 99% of the market, they would not be sued, why?

Because Safari is a optional component, same as quicktime (and ituenes, etc.), there are checkboxes in the installer to choose weather or not to install them, even after they are installed, you can remove them again.

Same thing with linux, everything is optional.

[PGHammer]

Wow a whole thread of idiots rambling on about something about which they have no clue. Haven't seen one of these on Neowin in about a minute or so.

There is nothing illegal about being a monopoly. It is illegal to use your position as a monoply to force out competition.

This is what MS did. They used their position to keep BeOS and others off of PC's by threatening to raise OEM prices for Windows. They also used their power to keep other software off of default OEM installs Desktops. PC sellers were not allowed to put, for example a Netscape icon on the desktop, for their hard drive image used to install Windows.

Good Lord people this thread is a meandering steaming pile of misinformation and twisted logic.

The facts are out there, use the resources right in front of your face. http://google.com

Come on let's give our parents something to be proud of and our children something to look forward to.

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Microsoft did *not* prohibit OEMs from installing Netscape on customer PCs. (In fact, the suit by the Justice Department didn't accuse Microsoft of this.) What the Justice Department accused Microsoft of (and what the judgement was ultimately about) is the following:

1. By including Internet Explorer with Windows (originally Windows 95 Service Releases 2.x, later amended to include Windows 98), Microsoft unfairly impacted Netscape Communications' ability to compete with Internet Explorer. (Never mind that several amicus briefs filed in the case stated otherwise; including one filed by Macromedia.)

2. Microsoft was accused of using pricing leverage with larger OEMs to restrict operating system choice. (Again, never mind that no documentation was *ever* produced to confirm this, either from Microsoft or from the OEMs in question.) In fact, as an OEM myself, I can categorically deny that this was *ever* the case.

What basically happened is that Microsoft fixed a badly broken IE by *listening to what customers wanted* while Netscape not only was arrogant in refusing to fix known problems with the browser, but even broke their own standard for browser plug-ins. And Netscape screamed *foul*.

Why did the pre-loading even begin? That has to do with the then largest single promotion for a free product in Microsoft's then history: Midnight Madness (Internet Explorer 3.0). Once lots of folks realized that they could migrate to Microsoft's IE and take their Netscape 2.x plug-ins with them (which wasn't the case with Netscape 3.x), they migrated in droves. It became the most downloaded browser in history; and by itself caused massive delays in some areas of the US. This put Microsoft into a quandary. Demand was definitely there, and they weren't charging *anything* for the browser. So naturally, the thought came up: "Why *not* include the browser with the operating system?"

Later, along came ActiveDesktop, and Internet Explorer 4.0 (and along with it, Midnight Madness II). While the success of Internet Explorer 3.x caught Netscape napping, IE 4 surprised nobody. Leaks had been rife about IE 4 (and ActiveDesktop) practically throughout its development. What was initially expected was that it would only become available with the successor to Windows 95, then known only by the code-name *Nashville*. However, a pair of leaks from Microsoft would change everything. One was a leak of the second alpha version of IE 4, complete with ActiveDesktop, which could run on Windows 95 Service Pack 1 or later. The second is a leak of an even more polished build of Nashville (which I referred to as *Nashville II*) to the Internet at large (Fred Langa wrote a review of this leaked OS in WINDOWS Magazine in 1997, and I wrote a six-page missive on it myself in Microsoft's public newsgroups the same month). The cat was well and truly out of the bag now. Netscape had no answer for ActiveDesktop, and Browser War I was all but over.

[PseudoRandomDragon]

2.  Microsoft was accused of using pricing leverage with larger OEMs to restrict operating system choice.  (Again, never mind that no documentation was *ever* produced to confirm this, either from Microsoft or from the OEMs in question.)  In fact, as an OEM myself, I can categorically deny that this was *ever* the case.

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Sorry, but on that point, you are just plain wrong. Maybe it didn't effect the smaller OEMs, but MS did threaten the licenses for bigger OEMs.

[vcv]

October 27, 1997: The Justice Department files a complaint demanding a $1-million-a-day fine against Microsoft for its alleged violation of the 1995 consent decree. The complaint claims that Microsoft overstepped its bounds by demanding PC manufacturers bundle the Internet Explorer Web browser with their hardware products before being able to obtain a Windows 95 license.

May 12, 1998: An appeals court rules that the injunction against Microsoft should not apply to Windows 98, allowing Microsoft to proceed with the launch of its new product. A 2-1 majority rules that Microsoft can integrate whatever it wants into the OS as long as it benefits consumers and can't be replicated.

November 17, 1998: Sun Microsystems wins a crucial ruling when a federal court tells Microsoft to stop selling products that contain an incompatible version of Java. Meanwhile, South Carolina drops out of the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, saying there was sufficient competition in the Internet market.

January 12, 1999: The final day of the government's case. In a climactic turn, the government's top economic witness admits that Microsoft has done nothing so far that would harm consumers.

March 4, 1999: Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican from Microsoft's home state of Washington, says the Justice Department has gone too far and should drop the case against his constituent.

November 5, 1999: Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issues his initial findings of fact, finding that Microsoft held monopoly power and used it to harm consumers, rivals, and other companies.

MS was mostly accused of bindling IE with Windows and it being unfair. I could not find any part of the ruling which states they were found to have charged OEMs more for including netscape/not including IE. But again, this is about the court Trying to say MS should not be able to include IE.

[PseudoRandomDragon]

Just because they weren't charged with it doesn't mean they didn't do it. MS got away with a lot of things they weren't charged for.

[vcv]

Just because they weren't charged with it doesn't mean they didn't do it. MS got away with a lot of things they weren't charged for.

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Well then, do you have anything to back up your claim or the courts claim? But AGAIN, that is NOT what this thread is about.

[El_Cu_Guy]

Just because they weren't charged with it doesn't mean they didn't do it. MS got away with a lot of things they weren't charged for.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, - Plaintiff

v.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION - Defendant

Civil Action No. 98-1232

(Antitrust)

COMPLAINT

#15. Having failed simply to stop competition by agreement, Microsoft set about to exclude Netscape and other browser rivals from access to the distribution, promotion, and resources they needed to offer their browser products to OEMs and PC users pervasively enough to facilitate the widespread distribution of Java or to facilitate their browsers becoming an attractive programming platform in their own right.

The complaint does not specifically mention that Microsoft is offering discounts to OEMs who load their products instead of their competitors. However, complaint 15 clearly states one of the specific violations of the Consent Decree. It's not necessary to state this word for word because this practice was part of the friggin' decree.

Consent Decree pg.6

B. Microsoft shall not enter into any License Agreement that by its terms prohibits or restricts the OEM's licensing, sale or distribution of any non-Microsoft Operating System Software product.