Word: browsers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...there's the rub. Web browsers began as simple products that let users access Web pages, but they are swiftly evolving into full-service communications programs. Netscape, for instance, whose Communicator browser retains a large market lead over Explorer, has steadily upgraded Communicator with new applications--E-mail, groupware, newsreaders--just as Microsoft does with Explorer. Browsers, Klein says, "could erode Microsoft's operating-system monopoly, because browsers take computing beyond the desktop, where Microsoft rules, and into the world of the Internet, where no one is dominant...
Unthinkably evil, you say? Well, he's already taken a tentative step in that direction. Try to access Microsoft's popular online gaming site, the Zone, using Netscape's browser or a Mac machine for a taste of the power Gates could eventually wield. "We're sorry," reads the otherwise blank page. "The new Zone doesn't currently support Microsoft Windows 3.x; or Apple Macintosh or Unix (R) operating systems, or Microsoft Internet Explorer version 2.0 or Netscape Navigator browsers." Resistance is futile...
...Gates before it's too late. Klein confirmed last week that his investigation of Microsoft remains "ongoing and wide-ranging." Microsoft's planned integration of Explorer into Windows 98 could trigger the most critical antitrust battle since the feds broke up Ma Bell in '84. Gates understands that the browser is the soul of the new machine that will carry us all into the 21st century, and he won't back down. "The point of antitrust law," Myhrvold argues, "is to say, 'Is there a situation that will harm consumers' interests?' And we feel very strongly that, no, this doesn...
...simply picks his targets as he sees them. "I'm not an ideologue or a crusader," he says. "Our principle is that any consumer should have a choice in what he chooses to buy. But that's not the case when [computer makers must] automatically add Microsoft's Internet browser." Nor does Klein feel overmatched on high-tech issues. "I'm online," he says. "I know what a browser...
...Justice Department considers those "new features" to be a browser by any other name, a separate product from the Windows desktop, and thus subject to anti-trust law. It's now up to the courts; but the early betting on Wall Street was that there's very little that the boys from Redmond can't buy/bully their way out of. A pleasant earnings reports at day's end left Microsoft stock up 1/4 at 132 1/2. Rival browser-pusher Netscape was up 4 5/16 after a early $6 rise...