Microsoft's new best friends
C|Net | at | by Mike
When the Department of Justice hauled Microsoft into court on antitrust charges in 1998, Silicon Valley was awash in schadenfreude. For years, Microsoft's Windows desktop monopoly had inspired equal doses of fear and distrust. It was time for payback, courtesy of Uncle Sam and your hard-earned taxpayer dollars at work. But all it took was a heretofore obscure patent to ignite a controversy to turn Microsoft into the people's choice.
But as computer industry executives pondered the business ramifications of the Eolas verdict, they began to get a cold sweat over the prospect of millions of Web pages--as well as products of independent software developers--winding up being incompatible with Microsoft's Internet browser.