FC: Netscape should stop whining about Microsoft dominance --S. Richman

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0203c.asp

   Netscape Gets the Green "W"
   by Sheldon Richman, March 2002
   
   Imagine the nerve of a company that gives away its product in an
   attempt to knock off the dominant firm in an industry. I have one such
   company in mind right now. It went all out to make it easy for
   consumers to have free access to its product. You couldn't turn around
   without being handed, gratis, this company's goods. When the dust
   settled, the new company was No. 1, the old leader relegated to
   also-ran status.
   
   No, I am not thinking of Microsoft and its effort to dethrone the web
   browser Netscape Navigator with Internet Explorer. I'm thinking of
   America Online's (AOL) move against Compuserve as an Internet service
   provider. It's more than a little ironic that AOL Time Warner now owns
   Netscape and has just filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft for
   doing what AOL did to Compuserve.
   
   AOL Time Warner Netscape should be given the Green "W," the award I
   just made up for the biggest corporate whiner in the country. (The
   competition for that distinction is fierce.) The American business
   ethic today is this: Those who can do; those who can't, cry to
   government.
   
   What is Microsoft's grave offense? Netscape says that Navigator lost
   favor with the market because Microsoft began to give away Internet
   Explorer as part of its Windows operating system. Did Microsoft blow
   up Netscape's facilities? No. Did it infiltrate Netscape's operations
   and sabotage them? No. Did it stop anyone from using Navigator rather
   than Internet Explorer. Well, no; Microsoft didn't do that either.
   
   All it did was make Internet Explorer a feature of Windows. That's it.
   In America today, that might be an offense for which one can be
   assessed treble damages. At least Netscape hopes so.
   
   What makes some people think Microsoft did something bad is that it
   supplies the market's most popular operating system. That enables
   Microsoft to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows and gain a supposed
   unfair advantage over competitors.
   
   The devastating question for Netscape: so what? Why is it unfair? To
   whom? Certainly not to consumers. They apparently like the convenience
   of having the browser integrated with the operating system. It surely
   reduces the hassle. Had Internet Explorer not been a good browser,
   Microsoft's strategy would have counted for naught. Netscape had
   nearly the entire market to itself even after consumers received
   Internet Explorer for free. Earlier versions of Microsoft's product
   were not impressive, and consumers were able to use Netscape with
   Windows. (They still can.) Only when a later version of Internet
   Explorer began to impress software reviewers did consumers give it
   another look and turn to it in great numbers. (In Contrast, Windows
   has not helped Microsoft bring its own Internet service provider, MSN,
   to dominance.)
   
   Netscape lost the market on the merits, not because of any "unfair"
   advantage.
   
   Think of what it would mean if Netscape gets its way: government would
   be the ultimate judge of what can go into a computer operating system.
   Where's it written that a browser is not part of the operating system?
   There was a time when disk, video, and printer drivers weren't part of
   the operating system either. Should we be forced to live by the
   standards of the early days of personal computing?

   [...]



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