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Gimme a Reason, Punk (3/2/98)
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The new kinder, gentler Microsoft again emerges in time to avoid more sticky entanglements with the U.S. Department of Justice. This time, the software company launched a pre-emptive strike by voluntarily relaxing their contracts with twelve U.S. internet service providers, while doing the same with thirty European providers in order to dodge further anti-trust attacks by the European Commission. (Hey, why not kill two birds with one stone?) A Reuters story has more.
Microsoft's original agreements with the ISP's required that the service providers tout Internet Explorer exclusively to their customers, though they were free to provide other browsers upon request. (Gee, thanks.) Microsoft now allows the ISP's to promote competing browsers alongside IE, but not more than they promote IE.
It seems like Microsoft learned something from the ongoing "Redmond Justice" debacle, in which they suffered a significant amount of negative PR after they fought tooth and nail against allowing Wintel manufacturers to ship Windows 95 systems without Internet Explorer. When they finally relented, they found that none of their licensees were unbundling IE anyway. The DoJ has recently been sniffing around Microsoft's agreements with ISP's, and by loosening the restrictions in their contracts now, they can avoid the potential anti-trust lawsuit entirely, with probably zero effect on IE's popularity. Hey, no one ever said they were stupid.
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SceneLink (499)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/2/98 episode: March 2, 1998: Cloner Umax dares to miff Apple by driving six-slot G3 systems through a loophole the size of Kansas. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues in its kinder, gentler persona by loosening its chokehold on ISPs at home and abroad, and Reality prepares for a comeback within the week...
Other scenes from that episode: 498: Think Loophole (3/2/98) As reported in a CNET article, last remaining Mac OS clone vendor Umax has found it necessary to think devious in order to remain competitive with Apple. Since Apple won't allow Umax to ship G3-based machines, Umax is shipping the same old 604e-based models..... 500: Return to Reality (3/2/98) Good news for the rumor junkies among you (AtAT included): MacNN Reality has announced that they will be back in action "within the week." If you've been paying attention recently, you know that Reality shut themselves down following a fracas with Greg Landweber, the developer of Kaleidoscope, who took umbrage with Reality's unauthorized posting of screenshots of the upcoming Kaleidoscope 2.0...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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