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Comment by sauravc | Hacker News Reader

What landed them in Federal Court was bundling a browser (the most advanced at the time) with their OS for free. Over a decade later, we all know that a consumer OS that ships without a browser is an incomplete product (as BillG testified in the case).

What Apple is doing now with dictatorial actions in its app stores is just as, if not more, overreaching IMHO. Does that make it OK? No.

But keep in mind why people were actually interested in what MS had to offer back then. Just as we still buy Apple products despite their anti-competitive behavior, people bought MSFT products in the largely because the product addressed their needs better than others and the price was right.

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They did more than bundle a browser, they gave OEMs financial incentives NOT to bundle Netscape.

The reason why Apple's dictatorial actions don't bother me is they're only a small part of the market. If I want to develop a mobile web browser, I can still use Android and have a market.

With Windows, Microsoft WAS the market.

With the tablets there was a time (roughly a year) when Apple was the market.

> What landed them in Federal Court was bundling a browser (the most advanced at the time) with their OS for free. Over a decade later, we all know that a consumer OS that ships without a browser is an incomplete product (as BillG testified in the case)

no. it was never a problem that Microsoft bundled IE or any other product in with their own software. The problem was leaning on other companies, that Microsoft was in a business relationship with, to encourage those companies to exclude software offered by Microsoft's competitors.

Not just the browser.

They also had pricing schemes with OEMs that made it impossible for the box builders to release any products with alternative OSes preinstalled (as it would raise the price of their Windows license). And a box builder that couldn't sell a competitive Windows machine was effectively useless.

Hitachi backing out of pre-installing (the technically amazing) BeOS is what eventually killed the company. Years later the shareholders won in court but by then Be was dead.

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