The Microsoft Conspiracy

Exclusive!! Want Freedom From Being Censored? Check Out This Last Frontier of Free Press – Tutorial

In April 1975, a young Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft, now a definitive computing superpower.

In 2015, Forbes placed the Microsoft Empire at number 2 on its list of the world’s most valuable brands, with a value of $69.3 billion.

Microsoft has pioneered numerous technologies, including the graphical user interface, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and the Xbox One. Today it employs 118,000 people and Windows is used by 1.5 billion people worldwide.

But in the late 1990s, it emerged that Microsoft took drastic, unethical action to maintain Internet Explorer as the top internet browser service.

At the dawn of the digital era, Internet Explorer’s position as the world’s leading web browser was threatened by Netscape’s Navigator.

Netscape and other browser companies accused Microsoft of malpractice. They claimed that Microsoft’s dominance over the industry was purely the result of shady manipulation, which made it almost impossible for other companies to compete with it.

And in 1998, the US Department of Justice sued Microsoft for breaching corporate conduct and illegally thwarting competition.

On May 18th that year, a trial began, investigating whether it was ethical that Microsoft bundled its web browser – Internet Explorer – together with its Windows operating system. This was an initiative that the company adopted after other browsers began to close in on Microsoft’s previously unthreatened territory.

This enterprise meant that Explorer was the default browser for all Windows users, whether they wanted it or not. Windows was also frustratingly slow for customers to download alternate browsers, which often struggled to run on the Microsoft operating system.

The prosecution, led by lawyer Joel Klein, argued that this was a deliberate attempt to freeze out Internet Explorer’s competitors, as 80% of the world’s PCs ran on Windows. There were even claims that Microsoft manipulated the operating system programming so third party web browsers, like Netscape Navigator, would falter – although Microsoft strongly denies these allegations.

The conduct of top Microsoft executives during the trial did little to improve Microsoft’s reputation.

During the prosecution, Bill Gates repeatedly answered ‘I don’t recall’ to many questions. He was accused of being ‘evasive and nonresponsive’.

Even more suspiciously, Microsoft submitted video tapes as evidence, but they had clearly been altered. These tapes intended to show how easy it was for a Windows User to download a different browser – but the footage visibly glitched, and some icons mysteriously disappeared.

Microsoft’s tapes were provided in response to accusations from rival companies who had filmed themselves attempting to download their browsers onto a Windows computer. These videos showed that this was an unnecessarily slow and difficult process.

There were numerous disparities between the prosecution’s footage and the tapes filmed by Microsoft, which also omitted complicated steps from the download process.

In June 2000, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson concluded that Microsoft acted illegally. He accused the company of having ‘an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect’.

As a result, the court ordered Microsoft to be broken up, so that Windows and Internet Explorer would have to exist as separate entities.

The outcome of the case, however, wasn’t quite that simple.

Microsoft immediately appealed the decision and had it overturned, on the grounds that Judge Jackson had violated the Code of Conduct for US Judges. Although it was forbidden, the Judge had given interviews to the media during the trial.

Microsoft also protested that it hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place. It claimed that complaints about its conduct were attempts by jealous rival companies to undermine their prowess. After all, the dissatisfaction had not come from Microsoft customers but from other businesses, like Netscape Navigator and Opera.

Many commentators have discussed the accusations directed at the company, and opinion is divided.

Economist Milton Friedman believes that the case against Microsoft sets a dangerous precedent for other businesses. According to Friedman, the Department of Justice’s prosecution of Microsoft heralded the beginning of a new era of government interference in the technological industry.

Today, Microsoft remains a massive technological force. It now owns 182 companies, including Skype, Nokia and game developer Mojang. This constitutes more purchases than industrial giants, like Apple, Google or Facebook.

Whether they achieved it ethically or not, Microsoft’s economic dominance shows no sign of going away.

Exclusive!! Want Freedom From Being Censored? Check Out This Last Frontier of Free Press – Tutorial