California sues Microsoft for antitrust...again

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MS used everything they could get hold of to derail OS/2. While IBM did a less than stellar job of marketing, that is only part of the reason it wasn't successful. There was nothing about OS/2 that required a microchannel or other IBM product, only that the machine was "100% IBM Compatible" which by that time qualified Compaq, Dell, HP and others just as much as IBM. Those other vendors, however were prevented from offering any operating system other than Windows by restrictive contracts (later found by the courts to be illegal and resulting in MS signing a consent decree to discontinue the practice). If you were to call one of the major OEMs as named above and request a machine preloaded with OS/2, the CSR on the phone would very politely tell you that they couldn't provide that product because of their contractual arrangments with MS. Because Windows was the product that was most visible in the retail channel, even IBM had to eventually give in: MS refused to license Windows95 to IBM until IBM stopped marketing OS/2. This was the SAME OS/2 that MS told the market in 1989 was a "strategic MS product" and was positioned to run on "high-end" PCs that had more than 1MB of RAM. The prouduct known as Windows NT began life as OS/2 Version 3. In spite of all of that, IBM was able to make some headway with a product called "OS/2 for Windows" which used the customer's installed Win 3.1 code to run Windows apps under OS/2. MS introduced Win 3.11, which introduced very little new function (32-bit disk drivers, I think) but broke "OS/2 for Windows". IBM was subsequently able to come out with a trivial patch that fixed the problem, but this is not the first time that MS has appeared to deliberatly introduce incompatibity with complementary productus from other vendors. When IBM wanted to provide a way to run 32-bit Windows binaries, MS put all kinds of legal obstacles in the way, deriving from their joint ownership with IBM of the OS/2 code.

Once again, it is not illegal to have monopoly power. It is, however illegal to use that power to prevent competition from entering the marketplace. Sort of like: it is not illegal to own a gun. It is, however, in most cases, illegal to shoot people with it.

George

Posted by: WhoIsDaMan   Posted on: 08/29/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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