Re: An interesting parallel...
And then Microsoft tried to tie their browser to their OS and got the crap sued out of them for anti-competitive behaviour.
Not exactly. I mean, what you wrote is true, but it's not why MS was sued.
Certain PC manufacturers wanted to include Netscape on their products. Microsoft let these vendors know that the only browser they were allowed to have preinstalled on their products was Internet Explorer, and it had to have an icon on the desktop prominently displayed in the default configuration. If the OEM did not follow this command, they would be denied Windows to sell preinstalled on their PCs. How many PCs would they be able to sell without Windows?
That was the anti-competitive behavior. Having IE installed with Windows would have been fine if MS had not tried to use their OS monopoly to crush Netscape. They did a lot more than simply bundle them together!
The thing about IE being built-in and supposedly uninstallable wasn't directly part of the anti-competitive behavior. It was a function of MS having predicted what was going to happen, a pre-emptive move to prevent the eventual plaintiffs from succeeding with the demand that IE be separated from Windows. If Windows could be installed without IE by OEMs, those OEMs could choose to install Netscape instead of IE. A new PC was expected to have a browser preinstalled... and if every PC that had Windows also had IE, that box was ticked before Netscape entered into it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
