Re: Evidence of tying

[rmw@netscape.com (Robert Waugh)]

  Tod Landis wrote:
  > The problem is that if a vendor completely controls the browser
  > side, they can drive for dominance of the server side, and from
  > there to dominance of applications.  
  
  While it's horrible for any company to control a monopoly on a market, I think
  the really important issue here is that by having a monopoly in one market and
  using that sway over an industry to establish other monopolies in the hope of
  controlling an entire industry from top to bottom.
  
  At one time, my company, Netscape, had an apparent monopoly over the browser
  and server business.  While I personally felt that it wasn't necessarily the
  best thing, it was such a small section of the entire industry that it didn't
  really affect the industry as a whole.
  
  However, Netscape has always had a different approach to business than
  Microsoft.  From the outset, we chartered ourselves as a software company that
  did what we do, and tries to do it well.  We decreed to ourselves that we
  wouldn't compete with our partners, such as excite and yahoo, and offer
  content services such as search engines and indexes.  This was because we did
  have an apparent monopoly at the time, and to do so would be unfair to the
  Internet commerce subindustry as a whole.
  
  Microsoft's technique is significantly different.  Just like prior to the
  release of Windows when they went around purchasing companies with emerging
  GUI operating systems that ran on top of MS-DOS then closing them down to the
  point of not even refunding or fufilling pre-orders, they are aggressively
  trying destroy all facets of competition on the Internet.  It doesn't even
  *begin* at the browser market, it's just the most advanced at this point.
  
  Microsoft is currently sinking vast amounts of money into building a search
  engine that will crush the competition in an already seemingly established
  niche market.  They have already fairly successfully made the "sidewalk"
  series of sites, which provide metropolitain event planning.  They've actually
  almost totally nailed the online airline reservation market.  In fact, their
  range of services being developed and researched are so vast that soon, they
  will have a case for being one of the only information providers on the
  Internet.  Then, once the digital television satellite network is deployed
  using the hundreds of USSR ICBM's they purchased a year ago and their vast
  amounts of money, they will be able to establish themselves as the premier
  cable/Internet access providers, with a gateway to... you guessed it, MSN. 
  Why do you think that TCI and others have come out and said "Microsoft will
  not control cable".  Fear.  Because, at their current rate of expansion where
  because of their monopoly building practices they make $5 for every $1
  expended on establishing a monopoly, there is no reason for them to not try to
  control the entire trillion dollar industry.
  
  Paranoia?  I wish.  This public awareness of Microsoft's dubious business
  practices is coming at a good time, because they're under the magnafying glass
  at a critical point in their master plan.  And, the company that will bring it
  to you is the company that didn't believe that there was any need to encrypt
  passwords in win95 and that private keys can be stored unencrypted in the
  registry.
  
  -- 
  Robert Mark Waugh
  Senior Software Engineer
  rmw@netscape.com