Every day Web resources are published, combined, modified, moved, and deleted. 27. The company's decision not to consider the prices of other vendors' Intel-compatible PC operating systems when setting the price of Windows 98, for example, is probative of monopoly power. Thus, had it convinced Netscape to accept its offer of a "special relationship," Microsoft quickly would have gained such control over the extensions and standards that network-centric applications (including Web sites) employ as to make it all but impossible for any future browser rival to lure appreciable developer interest away from Microsoft's platform. In 1981, Microsoft released the first version of its Microsoft Disk Operating System, commonly known as "MS-DOS." If the consumer opts for the less expensive hardware of the network computer, that hardware will not support an Intel-compatible PC operating system; and if the new buyer opts for the more expensive hardware of an Intel-compatible PC, an Intel-compatible PC operating system will almost certainly come pre-installed (and in any event represent very little additional cost relative to the price of the hardware).  A few days after the exchange with Waldman, Gates informed those Microsoft executives most closely involved in the negotiations with Apple that the discussions "have not been going well at all." Also, for businesses desiring to inhibit employees' access to the Internet while minimizing system support costs, the most efficient solution is often using PC systems without browsers. For example, Microsoft allows the developers of browser shells built on Internet Explorer to collect ancillary revenues such as advertising fees; for another, Microsoft permits its browser licensees to change the browser's start page, thus limiting the fees that advertisers are willing to pay for placement on that page by Microsoft. Self-certification would have decreased the time it took IBM PCs to reach the market, and IBM knew that the privilege was already being extended to some of its main OEM competitors. QuickTime competes with Microsoft's own multimedia technologies, including Microsoft's multimedia APIs (called "DirectX") and its media player. Furthermore, no firm that does not currently market Intel-compatible PC operating systems could start doing so in a way that would, within a reasonably short period of time, present a significant percentage of consumers with a viable alternative to existing Intel-compatible PC operating systems. The provision states that "AOL has no present intention to make any such replacement or use and shall have no obligation to make any such replacement or use, and that it is AOL's present expectation that it . 75.  Sun announced in May 1995 that it had developed the Java programming language. These actions thus contributed to improving the quality of Web browsing software, lowering its cost, and increasing its availability, thereby benefitting consumers.  The software code necessary to supply the functionality of a modern application or operating system can be extremely long and complex. Although the percentages varied by IAP, the most common figure was seventy-five percent. If these consumers want the non-browsing features available only in Windows 98, they must content themselves with an operating system that runs more slowly than if Microsoft had not interspersed browsing-specific routines throughout various files containing routines relied upon by the operating system. This process takes a moderate degree of sophistication and substantial amount of time, and as the average bandwidth of PC connections has grown, so has the average size of browser products. . First, ICPs could help build Internet Explorer's usage share by featuring advertisements and links for Internet Explorer, to the exclusion of non-Microsoft browsing software, on their Web pages. Some consumers, particularly corporate consumers, demand browsers and operating systems separately because they prefer to standardize on the same browser across different operating systems.  When a user accessing the Internet through AOL moves from one Web page to another, AOL temporarily stores, or "caches," the first Web page on a local server. This policy has guaranteed the presence of Internet Explorer on every new Windows PC system. To the extent AdKnowledge can detect the IAPs through which individual users access the monitored sites, the data can also be used to calculate estimates of the usage shares that particular types of browsing software attract from the subscriber bases of particular IAPs. It remains to be seen, though, whether there will ever be a sustained stream of full-featured applications written solely to middleware APIs. The cumulative effect of the stratagems described above was to ensure that the easiest and most intuitive paths that users could take to the Web would lead to Internet Explorer, the gate controlled by Microsoft. Members. Finally, the average user knows that, generally speaking, applications improve through successive versions. The applications relying exclusively on middleware APIs would run, as written, on any operating system hosting the requisite middleware. Moreover, it could do so for a significant period of time without losing an unacceptable amount of business to competitors. It thus wanted to ensure that the Java software created to deliver multimedia content would not rely on Java implementations that fostered portability. One of the best things about the Nintendo Switch is that it’s completely region-free. For years, fans of wrestling, or sports entertainment as Vince insists it’s called, have had to endure mediocre renditions of the sport. I.  Before a developer sinks costs into writing applications that rely on APIs exposed by Navigator or Internet Explorer, the developer will also want to know what share of browser usage each of the competing platforms will enjoy in the future, when the developer's applications will reach the marketplace, and even farther into the future, when the developer will try to sell updated versions of those applications. On May 13, 1996, Compaq signed an addendum extending the firms' Frontline Partnership to the realm of network-related products. After all, Microsoft made the restriction a non-negotiable term in its Windows 95 license, and the OEMs felt they had no commercially viable alternative to pre-installing Windows 95 on their PCs. SLL and many other websites reposted it. This would lead to confusion among novice users, which would in turn increase the incidence of support calls and product returns.  Microsoft's economic witness, Richard Schmalensee, testified survey data collected by Market Decisions Corporation ("MDC") provide a more accurate measure of the usage shares enjoyed by different brands of Web browsing software than AdKnowledge's hit data. Of course, the fact that it is extremely difficult for an efficient would-be rival to accumulate enough applications support to compete with Windows does not mean that sustaining its own applications support is effortless for Microsoft. In fact, the revised version of Professor Felten's prototype removal program produces precisely this result when run on a computer with Windows 98 installed. So even though Microsoft is more concerned about piracy than it is about other firms' operating system products, the company's pricing is not substantially constrained by the need to reduce the incentives for consumers to acquire their copies of Windows illegally. 375. He added that Microsoft would not do any co-marketing and sales campaigns with Gateway if the firm appeared to be anything but pro-Microsoft. Therefore, in determining the level of Microsoft's market power, the relevant market is the licensing of all Intel-compatible PC operating systems world-wide. Without significant exception, all OEMs pre-install Windows on the vast majority of PCs that they sell, and they uniformly are of a mind that there exists no commercially viable alternative to which they could switch in response to a substantial and sustained price increase or its equivalent by Microsoft. Still, there is not sufficient evidence to support a finding that Microsoft's promotional restrictions actually had a substantial, deleterious impact on Navigator's usage share. As one Microsoft negotiator reported to Chase about AT&T WorldNet, "It's very clear that they really really want to be in the Windows box." In the ensuing, more technical discussions, the Netscape executives agreed to adopt one component of Microsoft's platform-level Internet technology called Internet Shortcuts. Navigator will retain an appreciable usage share through the end of 2000.  The ICPs were so intent on gaining placement on the Channel Bar that they even complied, albeit reluctantly, when Microsoft imposed restrictions not contained in the Top Tier and Platinum agreements. These lost opportunities cost IBM substantial revenue. Furthermore, while Microsoft permitted the OEMs to include in their registration and sign-up programs promotions for their own products (including OEM-branded shell browsers built upon Internet Explorer) and for ISPs (but only if and when those ISPs were selected by consumers in the sign-up process), Microsoft continued to prohibit promotions for any other non-Microsoft products, including Navigator. I would gladly give up supporting this if they would back off from their work on JAVA which is terrible for Intel." 194. 232.  Microsoft went beyond giving OEMs incentives to promote Internet Explorer. 28.  Operating systems are not the only software programs that expose APIs to application developers. 127.  When Kempin spoke to the same executive at the end of the month, he repeated a message he had delivered more than once before: The fact that the IBM PC Company pre- installed SmartSuite on its PC systems made Microsoft reluctant to help IBM sell more PC systems. A "personal computer" ("PC") is a digital information processing device designed for use by one person at a time. 120. 138.  Over the months and years that followed the release of Internet Explorer 1.0 in July 1995, senior executives at Microsoft remained engrossed with maximizing Internet Explorer's share of browser usage. It did not yet know, however, that Netscape would employ Navigator to generate revenue directly, much less that the product would evolve in such a way as to threaten Microsoft. 396. 277.  One of the proposals the executives put forward was that Microsoft "Open Up the Windows Box." It is not surprising, then, that downloaded browsers now make up only a small and decreasing percentage of the new browsers (as opposed to upgrades) that consumers obtain and use. Furthermore, a consumer would not obtain a satisfactory substitute for an Intel-compatible PC operating system even if he purchased a server, since server operating systems lack the features — and support for the breadth of applications — that induce users to purchase Intel-compatible PC operating systems.  In contrast to other operating system vendors, Microsoft both refused to license its operating system without a browser and imposed restrictions — at first contractual and later technical — on OEMs' and end users' ability to remove its browser from its operating system. Applications written for Windows would then also run on the rival system, and consumers could use the rival system confident in that knowledge. Microsoft had offered Intuit a componentized browser while Netscape had not, and it stands to reason that Intuit would in all probability have distributed close to the same number of Internet Explorer copies even absent the distributional restrictions imposed by its contract. 352.  At the end of June 1997, the Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office, Ben Waldman, sent a message to Gates and Microsoft's Chief Financial Officer, Greg Maffei. Despite their reservations, the OLSs accepted Microsoft's terms because they saw placement in the OLS folder as crucial, and Microsoft made clear that it would only accord such placement to OLSs that agreed to give Internet Explorer exclusive, or at least extremely preferential, treatment.