browser market.
It prohibited PC makers from altering the start-up sequence of Windows 95 or Windows 98. It provided discounts or incentives to Internet service providers for favoring Internet Explorer over Netscape’s Navigator.
It forced PC makers to license its browse as a condition of buying the Windows operating system.
Its executives made false public statements concerning future product features and anticipated shipment dates.
It threatened other technology executives with blacklisting if they didn’t step back from plans to develop Internet software, even offering to illegally split the browser market with Netscape.
Microsoft tells a completely different version of the monopoly story. Microsoft maintains it is only following the strategies of successful U.S. corporate capitalism. The hallmarks of dominating an industry market are to subdue the competition, eliminate risks and raise profits. Microsoft contends that by continually building better products that anticipate the demands of consumers before the competition they have been able to achieve all three. Astute business decisions, being fiercely competitive and creating products as a result of engineering excellence explains the Microsoft rise to dominance. American capitalism at its finest; no more, no less. The lawyers for the company contend that the charges filed by antitrust officials are the result of disgruntled competitors who cannot compete with Microsoft, so they try to win government intervention as a means of checking Microsoft’s business excellence and continual innovation. The main arguments lawyers for Microsoft presented to the Justice Department are as follows:
It couldn’t have bundled its Web browser with Windows to crush Netscape because Microsoft planned to add Internet features to Windows long before Netscape became a company.
Its contracts with PC makers don’t illegally restrict them from customizing Windows, and i...