John Doe writes:

Anybody who wants to know what happened to Netscape Navigator needs
to read that document. There are copies of it in various places on
the Internet.

One also needs to read the detailed history of Netscape. The company
doomed itself, with or without any intervention by Microsoft. I still
recall some of the absolute garbage they tried to sell; I was amazed
that they had the nerve to put their name on the box.

The problem isn't the operating system, unless you want to consider
the problem with innovation given no competition. The problem is the
operating system maker making applications.

The operating system maker doesn't produce any applications, except
Office.

Or you haven't read the Findings of Fact on Microsoft.

Actually I have. But I've read a lot of other things, too, and I
don't consider judges to be experts on business and IT.

The operating system maker should not be allowed to make
applications, whatever you call it.

Why not?

I agree that's partly true. But the separation of the operating
system maker from the applications makers makes perfect sense to me.

I don't see any point. Microsoft only sells one application that
makes any serious cash, and it doesn't have much competition to begin
with.

Just because Microsoft owns Windows, does not mean Microsoft can do
anything it wants with Windows, no more than the rightful owner of a
baseball bat can aggressively bash in the skull of his enemy.

What would be the equivalent of bashing in skulls with Windows?

Having no choice of operating systems is not necessarily bad. Having
no choice for office applications and eventually no choice for many
other applications is bad.

Is it? One of the requirements of office applications is
interoperability. If everyone uses something different, there is
none.

And there aren't any other applications. Microsoft's only significant
end-user application is Office.

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