Remember the massive US gubmnt lawsuit against Microsoft over a decade ago? One of the major issues in that case was that Microsoft's web browser, Internet Explorer, was included with Windows and that inclusion foreclosed the browser market to others, especially Netscape.
What a travesty that suit was. The policy makers/enforcers didn't foresee the specific potential entrants and so they myopically assumed there would be none. Hah!
Netscape is dead (much of it morphing into early versions of Firefox). And now Microsoft Internet Explorer is dying [see this]:
A commonly held belief among heavy web users is that it's only acceptable to use Internet Explorer for the purpose of downloading Firefox or Chrome.
Snarky as this sentiment may seem, for many who have purchased a computer running Windows in recent years it’s also painfully rooted in the fact that Internet Explorer can no longer keep up with its competitors.
Once a market leader with a whopping 95 per cent usage share when it peaked in 2002, Microsoft’s flagship browser has experienced a steady decline in its user base since Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome hit the scene in 2004 and 2008, respectively.
Today Internet Explorer holds just eight per cent of global internet traffic — and a reputation for being the “most-hated web browser” in existence.
Competition and entry limited Microsoft's market power and continues to do so. I stopped using Netscape when it didn't keep up with computer changes and the other browsers offered better options and control. And I rarely used Internet Explorer ever.
For one of my earlier posts about Microsoft and the antitrust suit, see this.
As I wrote early on when I started blogging, US anti-trust policy is so short-sighted it behaves as if it has these two rules:
- You must compete.
- You must not win
Policy makers have little to no idea where the next innovation or competition might come from. As a result, when the more market-oriented economists ramble on about competition and entry but have no specific answers to the question, "But who will even consider entering against such a behemoth?", policy makers tend to overlook the extreme power of longer-run market forces, especially if the gubmnt doesn't get in the way of them.
The result? The entrants have displaced Internet Explorer and the antitrust suit against Microsoft was a monumental waste of resources for both the US taxpayers and Microsoft's stockholders.