MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator Message Board

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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator

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To: Reginald Middleton who wrote (23576)	11/17/1999 3:57:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) of 24154

Windows was easier to use than DOS or Unix. None of that matters for the purpose of this case. One can assume, for the sake of argument, that the means of gaining monopoly power were entirely benevolent. The issue at hand is what Microsoft did with that power once it had been attained.. Java applications written for one PC operating system WILL run on another PC.... Server side HTML applications will run on nearly all PC operating systems.... Exactly. And that is at the heart of this case. Microsoft used contracts and partnerships to prevent competition in the market for these very "middleware" applications. As the judge points out, Microsoft introduced changes in Java that make it more difficult to port a Java app written in Microsoft's J using default setting settings. The box-maker restrictions and ISP agreements sought to bar from the market client-level tools that allow others to set standards for how the server-side application interacts with the client side. Although Microsoft attorneys did not attempt to argue this point, one might look at the history of the Windows client and conclude that Microsoft lost the battle it tried to wage in '95 and '96. The proprietary protocols and tools that were at the heart of Microsoft's story of that epoch were largely abandoned by Microsoft in favor of Netscape's story of open standards. The genuine competition that one sees now stems largely from Microsoft's failure to implement its '95 vision of a closed-standard client interacting with a proprietary network. But the competition that exists today also demonstrates why Microsoft was so worried in '95 and '96 about what Netscape was doing, and why the company was willing to risk the extraordinary legal measures taken in contracts of the time. Throughout its short history, Microsoft had been very good at anticipating and leading the market. Maybe they borrowed or stole ideas from others, but what matters is that they recognized the good ideas before the market embraced them and then led to market to a new way of doing things. As it happens, Microsoft often led the market with what some would call "vaporware". Microsoft managers preferred the word "story". Microsoft always told a good story about any new technology. The market used that story as its script in several important changes in the industry. In '95, the market headed off in a direction that Microsoft had failed to anticipate. This time, Microsoft's story was rejected in favor of the ones being spun by Netscape and Sun. The email record introduced in the trial shows that Microsoft managers were scared and forced to fight a rear-guard action to keep the market from embracing a technology that Microsoft was not yet ready to deliver. What's most remakable to me about Jackson's FOF is just how much "he" (as the collective writer of the document is known) understands the complex interactions of the market and the technology that drives it.

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