Conclusion: The two examples you gave are clear indications the market has
gotten to where it is in spite of MS' attempts.
On your
first point:
Prior to MS entering the market there were others already
working on bringing the computer to the desktop. Commodore and Atari to name
two of the approx. dozen companies of the time frame (late 60's, early
70's).
So ... MS breaking IBM's notion? I don't think so. That idea was
already out in the market. If you doubt others were already on the scene, just
a small representation:
MS - founded Apr 4, 1975.
Commodore -
founded 1954, producing programmable calculators in the early 70's, moving into
personal computers with the purchase of second-source chip suppliers in
1976.
Sorry - MS was only joining a process that had already begun. And
one only need look at how many of those Corporation Corpses are direct victims
of MS' anti-competitive tactics to realize what really
happened.
Second point: Yes, Netscape eventually
survived and was reborn in the form of Mozzila. There is no denying
that:
A: IE came on the scene and was immediately packaged with the
distribution of the OS
B: Netscape started loosing ground
C:
IE was more tightly integrated as part of the OS making it more difficult to
remove
D: Netscape lost even more ground
There is evidence to
show:
Netscape 1 had functionality that was not fully in IE till IE
3.0
Between versions 3.0 and 7.0 IE was virtually frozen in feature
enhancements
And finally:
By open sourcing Netscapes code base so that
it was reborn as Mozilla and FLOSS development started modifying it - it
eventually acquired sufficient advances beyond IE such that MS was finally
forced to start implementing new functionality in IE.
Mozilla alone can
claim to have been part of what finally broke MS' hold on the browser, but they
can not claim that alone. The US Anti-trust lawsuit that forbid MS from
continuing such activities as charging OEM's for a copy of MS when a copy was
not sold and the EU Anti-trust activity forcing MS to provide a selection for
consumers to choose from also played large roles in breaking that
dominance.
Here's an example of that additional
functionality:
Drag-n-drop
Set up a text document with a url. Any
validly, fully formed, url. Such as http://www.google.ca or
http://groklawstatic.ibiblio.org - or even just use those two from this
comment.
The challenge:
In the browser you are testing, drag the
mouse over the url highlighting it. Then drag-n-drop it into a new tab.
In
IE 8, 64 bit on Windows 7 Professional: Sorry, no drag-n-drop
functionality.
In Firefox 18.0 on Windows 7 Professional: Yup - you can
highlight a plain text, properly formed url and drag-n-drop it into a new tab to
open it.
I'm sorry: but drag-n-drop is such an old concept there's no
excuse at all that IE can't do it properly. And that doesn't go anwhere near
the more advanced functionality that was first introduced into Mozilla and then
later added to IE such as .... tabbbed browsing.
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