Why Microsoft's All About the Web

Microsoft claims consumers and businesses can do lots of cool and productive things with Windows. But for all Windows’ features, I find what I miss the most is the Internet. Or so I learned a few hours into my three days without Internet access.

Hurricane Isabel knocked out power and broadband for much of the Washington metropolitan area on Thursday, Sept. 18. As of Saturday, utility PEPCO estimated that the majority of the 375,000 powerless customers would not see electricity until Friday--more than a week after Isabel tore through the area. It’s strange to go a block where there is power and an open 7-Eleven but see the next block powerless and the usually bustling Safeway darkened.

Until this afternoon, when Comcast kicked local service back on, my computer was uncharacteristically idle, in spite of all the things I should be able to do with a Windows PC. It’s the Internet, a creation apart from anything invented by Microsoft, that I missed. E-mail, instant messaging, (legal) downloadable music, online newspapers and wire feeds: These are the things for which I most use my PC and for which I sorely suffered without.

Through these unconnected days I have more keenly seen why Microsoft waged such an aggressive software development campaign against Netscape during the so-called browser wars. Once latecomer-to-the-Internet Microsoft realized the potential of the Web, the company wasted no time improving Internet Explorer to match and, later, exceed Netscape. Microsoft cranked out three Internet Explorer versions in about 18 months, by my estimation, bolting the last one onto Windows 98. Interesting how now the browser wars are over and Microsoft the unquestioned winner that Internet Explorer development has ground nearly to a halt on Windows and the Mac.

I sat through testimony during two antitrust trials--three if I count a protracted remedy hearing--that resulted from Microsoft’s making IE part of Windows 98. I’ve often questioned if government prosecutors understood Microsoft’s true motivations during the browser wars. The government painted out Microsoft to be a vicious, paranoid monopoly so wicked it would squash Netscape by making a Web browser an integral part of Windows.

I’m no lawyer, and so I won’t challenge those allegations, but I will suggest an alternative reason for Microsoft’s behavior. Under the government’s theory, Microsoft feared that Netscape’s browser and Sun’s Java would develop into competitive platforms upon which other companies would develop software products. Ultimately, these alternatives could replace Windows.

I believe that it was not competitive software Microsoft feared, but the whole World Wide Web. This independent-of-Microsoft phenomenon is what could replace Windows. I believe this fear, more than anything else, explains Microsoft’s behavior during the browser wars; from IE integration to including Web server and authoring tools with Windows NT 4, this fear explains much.

Microsoft’s success developing a great Web browser, the company’s business tactics and Netscape blunders assured IE’s supremacy and Windows a strategic role accessing and serving up Web content. Since, Microsoft aggressively has kept pace with or advanced many Internet technologies, such as e-mail, IM and Web services (Of course, Web services really aren't about the Web, contrary to common misperception).

Microsoft continues to advance core, proprietary technologies into areas where the browser gained dominance. For example, Microsoft is positioning Office as a "Smart Client" that would replace a Web browser for accessing back-end data or Web services. Through the new Research pane, Microsoft is bringing access to Web search, online encyclopedias and subscription information services like Factiva right into Office 2003.

Even so, the Internet remains a great threat to Microsoft, or so I’ve concluded during my frustrating days of disconnectivity. Most of what I do could be done on a much simpler computer; no Windows required. That could be a system running an embedded OS, Linux, Mac OS or even Lindows (Yeah, I know it’s Linux). The more content and information people access online, the less their need for a big, beefy OS that requires massive computing power.

Or so it would seem. The likes of Compaq, Gateway and Sony, among others, unsuccessfully tried winning over consumers to buy pseudo computers for accessing the Internet. For the most part, these Web appliances failed miserably. Released in the late 1990s, when IE hadn’t yet whooped Netscape and PC prices were much higher, these thin-clients might have had more success. But no one every real will know.

My roundabout point: Microsoft may have started slow out of the Internet gate, but the company has made certain the Web wouldn’t eclipse Windows. If not resourceful, Microsoft couldn’t be so successful.

Long-term, Microsoft’s great Internet dilemma will be content. The Web has always been about content. Some of the most interesting stuff that could be delivered over the Web, such as movies and music, is not necessarily dependant on Windows for delivery. Surely, music labels and Hollywood have interest in Windows, if for no other reason than the number of people using the OS to access content. But, they also have interest in avoiding too much dependence on Microsoft--or any single company, for that matter--for core technologies.

Posted by Joe Wilcox at September 21, 2003 04:37 PM