The year is 1998 and Microsoft is worth $250 billion; at 43 Bill Gates is the richest person on planet earth based on his equity in Microsoft. The Operating System Software is growing at 15-20 percent and Microsoft controls 95 percent of that market segment.
At this point and earlier, Microsoft worry is not about other software companies like Oracle and sun Microsystem but a small upstart with a crown jewel internet browser, Netscape Navigator. Microsoft schemes up a way to strangle Netscape Navigator to an early death.
The plot is simple: Microsoft buys a small browser from small company, tweaks it and Internet Explorer is born. The company bundles it with Windows and makes it look as though it was a relation of the OS.
Wired Magazine of September 1998 has a runs a flashy headline ‘Internet Explorer leaves Netscape in its wake’. Internet Explorer bags in 48.3 percent of the browser market and Netscape Navigator picks up the 41.5 leftover.
In terms of product supremacy Netscape Navigator is no match to Internet Explorer. However, Internet Explorer enjoys timeliness and good service delivery. Internet Explorer resides on the desktop of Windows and sits there ready to be clicked into action.
With Netscape Navigator, customers have to find an internet connection and download it. Remember that the setting of the story is not a Facebook generation but slow dial-up connection era where downloads take eternity to complete.
Most computer users did not even know a better internet browser than Internet Explorer ever existed.IE was after all, free. It is so hard to compete with free offers.
Just to make sure that all is well, Microsoft forces Computer manufacturers to load Internet Explorer into every PC they shipped or lose discounts and rebates they got on software licensing.
Let’s cut it short and say that those efforts succeeded in murdering Netscape Navigator. The upstart did not go down without scratching the body of Microsoft; it took Microsoft to court for unfair competition practices. The outcome of the case is a completely entire article for another day.
What this did was to scare off all the other fishes in the technology lake. The small and big fish realised that the lake was invested with a big crocodile ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. Google, Apple and other players learnt to swim quietly. Apple today is a very secretive company; now you know why.
We are now in Smartphone generation and Google has just revenged for Netscape Navigator; Android OS is Google baby and is free to anybody who can make a smartphone. Like Netscape Navigator, Microsoft mobile OS can’t fight free Android.
It’s time for Microsoft to learn the art of swimming quietly; bigger crocodiles exit. I rest my case.
Leave a Reply