IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
_____________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff
v.
MICROSOFT CORPORATION,
Defendant.
_____________________________________
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Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ) |
STATE OF NEW YORK, ex rel.
Attorney General ELIOT SPITZER, et al.,
Plaintiffs and
Counterclaim-Defendants,
v.
MICROSOFT CORPORATION,
Defendant and
Counterclaim-Plaintiff.
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Civil Action No. 98-1233 (TPJ) |
COURT'S FINDINGS OF FACT
FINDINGS OF FACT PDF
- BACKGROUND PDF
- THE RELEVANT MARKET PDF
- Demand Substitutability PDF
- The Possibility of Supply Responses PDF
- MICROSOFT'S POWER IN THE RELEVANT MARKET PDF
- Market Share PDF
- The Applications Barrier to Entry PDF
- Viable Alternatives to Windows PDF
- Price Restraint Posed by Microsoft's Installed Base PDF
- Price Restraint Posed by Piracy PDF
- Price Restraint Posed by Long-Term Threats PDF
- Significance of Microsoft's Innovation PDF
- Microsoft's Pricing Behavior PDF
- Microsoft's Actions Toward Other Firms PDF
- THE MIDDLEWARE THREATS PDF
- The Netscape Web browser PDF
- Sun's Implementation of the Java Technologies PDF
- Other Middleware Threats PDF
- MICROSOFT'S RESPONSE TO THE BROWSER THREAT PDF
- Microsoft's Attempt to Dissuade Netscape from Developing Navigator as a Platform PDF
- Withholding Crucial Technical Information PDF
- The Similar Experiences of Other Firms in Dealing with Microsoft PDF
- Developing Competitive Web Browsing Software PDF
- Giving Internet Explorer Away and Rewarding Firms that Helped Build Its Usage Share PDF
- Excluding Navigator from Important Distribution Channels PDF
- Microsoft's Success in Excluding Navigator from the Channels that Lead Most Efficiently to Browser Usage PDF
- The Success of Microsoft's Effort to Maximize Internet Explorer's Usage Share at Navigator's Expense PDF
- The Success of Microsoft's Effort to Protect the Applications Barrier to Entry from the Threat Posed by Navigator PDF
- MICROSOFT'S RESPONSE TO THE THREAT POSED BY SUN'S IMPLEMENTATION OF JAVA PDF
- Creating a Java Implementation for Windows that Undermined Portability and Was Incompatible with Other Implementations PDF
- Inducing Developers to Use the Microsoft Implementation of Java Rather than Sun-Compliant Implementations PDF
- Thwarting the Expansion of the Java Class Libraries PDF
- The Effect of Microsoft's Efforts to Prevent Java from Diminishing the Applications Barrier to Entry PDF
- THE EFFECT ON CONSUMERS OF MICROSOFT'S EFFORTS TO PROTECT THE APPLICATIONS BARRIER TO ENTRY
PDF
FINDINGS OF FACT
These consolidated civil antitrust actions alleging violations of the Sherman Act, §§ 1 and
2, and various state statutes by the defendant Microsoft Corporation, were tried to the Court,
sitting without a jury, between October 19, 1998, and June 24, 1999. The Court has considered
the record evidence submitted by the parties, made determinations as to its relevancy and
materiality, assessed the credibility of the testimony of the witnesses, both written and oral, and
ascertained for its purposes the probative significance of the documentary and visual evidence
presented. Upon the record before the Court as of July 28, 1999, at the close of the admission of
evidence, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a), the Court finds the following facts to have been
proved by a preponderance of the evidence. The Court shall state the conclusions of law to be
drawn therefrom in a separate Memorandum and Order to be filed in due course.
I.
BACKGROUND
1. A "personal computer" ("PC") is a digital information processing device designed
for use by one person at a time. A typical PC consists of central processing components (e.g., a
microprocessor and main memory) and mass data storage (such as a hard disk). A typical PC
system consists of a PC, certain peripheral input/output devices (including a monitor, a keyboard,
a mouse, and a printer), and an operating system. PC systems, which include desktop and laptop
models, can be distinguished from more powerful, more expensive computer systems known as
"servers," which are designed to provide data, services, and functionality through a digital
network to multiple users.
2. An "operating system" is a software program that controls the allocation and use
of computer resources (such as central processing unit time, main memory space, disk space, and
input/output channels). The operating system also supports the functions of software programs,
called "applications," that perform specific user-oriented tasks. The operating system supports
the functions of applications by exposing interfaces, called "application programming
interfaces," or "APIs." These are synapses at which the developer of an application can connect
to invoke pre-fabricated blocks of code in the operating system. These blocks of code in turn
perform crucial tasks, such as displaying text on the computer screen. Because it supports
applications while interacting more closely with the PC system's hardware, the operating system
is said to serve as a "platform."
3. An Intel-compatible PC is one designed to function with Intel's 80x86/Pentium
families of microprocessors or with compatible microprocessors manufactured by Intel or by
other firms.
4. An operating system designed to run on an Intel-compatible PC will not function
on a non-Intel-compatible PC, nor will an operating system designed for a non-Intel-compatible
PC function on an Intel-compatible one. Similarly, an application that relies on APIs specific to
one operating system will not, generally speaking, function on another operating system unless it
is first adapted, or "ported," to the APIs of the other operating system.
5. Defendant Microsoft Corporation is organized under the laws of the State of
Washington, and its headquarters are situated in Redmond, Washington. Since its inception,
Microsoft has focused primarily on developing software and licensing it to various purchasers.
6. In 1981, Microsoft released the first version of its Microsoft Disk Operating
System, commonly known as "MS-DOS." The system had a character-based user interface that
required the user to type specific instructions at a command prompt in order to perform tasks
such as launching applications and copying files. When the International Business Machines
Corporation ("IBM") selected MS-DOS for pre-installation on its first generation of PCs,
Microsoft's product became the predominant operating system sold for Intel-compatible PCs.
7. In 1985, Microsoft began shipping a software package called Windows. The
product included a graphical user interface, which enabled users to perform tasks by selecting
icons and words on the screen using a mouse. Although originally just a user-interface, or
"shell," sitting on top of MS-DOS, Windows took on more operating-system functionality over
time.
8. In 1995, Microsoft introduced a software package called Windows 95, which
announced itself as the first operating system for Intel-compatible PCs that exhibited the same
sort of integrated features as the Mac OS running PCs manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc.
("Apple"). Windows 95 enjoyed unprecedented popularity with consumers, and in June 1998,
Microsoft released its successor, Windows 98.
9. Microsoft is the leading supplier of operating systems for PCs. The company
transacts business in all fifty of the United States and in most countries around the world.
10. Microsoft licenses copies of its software programs directly to consumers. The
largest part of its MS-DOS and Windows sales, however, consists of licensing the products to
manufacturers of PCs (known as "original equipment manufacturers" or "OEMs"), such as the
IBM PC Company and the Compaq Computer Corporation ("Compaq"). An OEM typically
installs a copy of Windows onto one of its PCs before selling the package to a consumer under a
single price.
11. The Internet is a global electronic network, consisting of smaller, interconnected
networks, which allows millions of computers to exchange information over telephone wires,
dedicated data cables, and wireless links. The Internet links PCs by means of servers, which run
specialized operating systems and applications designed for servicing a network environment.
12. The World Wide Web ("the Web") is a massive collection of digital information
resources stored on servers throughout the Internet. These resources are typically provided in the
form of hypertext documents, commonly referred to as "Web pages," that may incorporate any
combination of text, graphics, audio and video content, software programs, and other data. A
user of a computer connected to the Internet can publish a page on the Web simply by copying it
into a specially designated, publicly accessible directory on a Web server. Some Web resources
are in the form of applications that provide functionality through a user's PC system but actually
execute on a server.
13. Internet content providers ("ICPs") are the individuals and organizations that have
established a presence, or "site," on the Web by publishing a collection of Web pages. Most
Web pages are in the form of "hypertext"; that is, they contain annotated references, or
"hyperlinks," to other Web pages. Hyperlinks can be used as cross-references within a single
document, between documents on the same site, or between documents on different sites.
14. Typically, one page on each Web site is the "home page," or the first access point
to the site. The home page is usually a hypertext document that presents an overview of the site
and hyperlinks to the other pages comprising the site.
15. PCs typically connect to the Internet through the services of Internet access
providers ("IAPs"), which generally charge subscription fees to their customers in the United
States. There are two types of IAPs. Online services ("OLSs") such as America Online
("AOL"), Prodigy, and the Microsoft Network ("MSN") offer, in addition to Internet access,
various services and an array of proprietary content. Internet service providers ("ISPs") such as
MindSpring and Netcom, on the other hand, offer few services apart from Internet access and
relatively little of their own content.
16. A "Web client" is software that, when running on a computer connected to the
Internet, sends information to and receives information from Web servers throughout the
Internet. Web clients and servers transfer data using a standard known as the Hypertext Transfer
Protocol ("HTTP"). A "Web browser" is a type of Web client that enables a user to select,
retrieve, and perceive resources on the Web. In particular, Web browsers provide a way for a
user to view hypertext documents and follow the hyperlinks that connect them, typically by
moving the cursor over a link and depressing the mouse button.
17. Although certain Web browsers provided graphical user interfaces as far back as
1993, the first widely-popular graphical browser distributed for profit, called Navigator, was
brought to market by the Netscape Communications Corporation in December 1994. Microsoft
introduced its browser, called Internet Explorer, in July 1995.
II.
THE RELEVANT MARKET
18. Currently there are no products, nor are there likely to be any in the near future,
that a significant percentage of consumers world-wide could substitute for Intel-compatible PC
operating systems without incurring substantial costs. 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. It follows that, if one firm
controlled the licensing of all Intel-compatible PC operating systems world-wide, it could set the
price of a license substantially above that which would be charged in a competitive market and
leave the price there for a significant period of time without losing so many customers as to make
the action unprofitable. 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.
- Demand Substitutability
- Server Operating Systems
19. Consumers could not turn from Intel-compatible PC operating systems to Intel-
compatible server operating systems without incurring substantial costs, since the latter type of
system is sold at a significantly higher price than the former. A consumer intent on acquiring a
server operating system would also have to buy a computer of substantially greater power and
price than an Intel-compatible PC, because server operating systems generally cannot function
properly on PC hardware. The price of an Intel-compatible PC operating system accounts for
only a very small percentage of the price of an Intel-compatible PC system. Thus, even a
substantial increase in the price of an Intel-compatible PC operating system above the
competitive level would result in only a trivial increase in the price of an Intel-compatible PC
system. Very few consumers would purchase expensive servers in response to a trivial increase
in the price of an Intel-compatible PC system. 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.
- Non-Intel-Compatible PC Operating Systems
20. Since only Intel-compatible PC operating systems will work with Intel-
compatible PCs, a consumer cannot opt for a non-Intel-compatible PC operating system without
obtaining a non-Intel-compatible PC. Thus, for consumers who already own an Intel-compatible
PC system, the cost of switching to a non-Intel compatible PC operating system includes the
price of not only a new operating system, but also a new PC and new peripheral devices. It also
includes the effort of learning to use the new system, the cost of acquiring a new set of
compatible applications, and the work of replacing files and documents that were associated with
the old applications. Very few consumers would incur these costs in response to the trivial
increase in the price of an Intel-compatible PC system that would result from even a substantial
increase in the price of an Intel-compatible PC operating system. For example, users of Intel-
compatible PC operating systems would not switch in large numbers to the Mac OS in response
to even a substantial, sustained increase in the price of an Intel-compatible PC operating system.
21. The response to a price increase would be somewhat greater among consumers
buying their first PC system, because they would not have already invested time and money in an
Intel-compatible PC system and a set of compatible applications. Apple does not license the
Mac OS separately from its PC hardware, however, and the package of hardware and software
comprising an Apple PC system is priced substantially higher than the average price of an Intel-
compatible PC system. Furthermore, consumer demand for Apple PC systems suffers on
account of the relative dearth of applications written to run on the Mac OS. It is unlikely, then,
that a firm controlling the licensing of all Intel-compatible PC operating systems would lose so
many new PC users to Apple as the result of a substantial, enduring price increase as to make the
action unprofitable. It is therefore proper to define a relevant market that excludes the Mac OS.
In any event, as Section III of these findings demonstrates, including the Mac OS in the relevant
market would not alter the Court's conclusion as to the level of Microsoft's market power.
- Information Appliances
22. No operating system designed for a hand-held computer, a "smart" wireless
telephone, a television set-top box, or a game console is capable of performing as an adequate
operating system for an Intel-compatible PC. Therefore, in order to adopt a substitute for the
Intel-compatible PC operating system from the realm of "information appliances," a consumer
must acquire one or more of these devices in lieu of an Intel-compatible PC system.
23. It is possible that, within the next few years, those consumers who otherwise
would use an Intel-compatible PC system solely for storing addresses and schedules, for sending
and receiving E-mail, for browsing the Web, and for playing video games might be able to
choose a complementary set of information appliances over an Intel-compatible PC system
without incurring substantial costs. To the extent this substitution occurs, though, it will be the
result of innovation by the producers of information appliances, and it will occur even if Intel-
compatible PC operating systems are priced at the same level that they would be in a competitive
market. More importantly, while some consumers may decide to make do with one or more
information appliances in place of an Intel-compatible PC system, the number of these
consumers will, for the foreseeable future, remain small in comparison to the number of
consumers deciding that they still need an Intel-compatible PC system. One reason for this is the
fact that no single type of information appliance, nor even all types in the aggregate, provides all
of the features that most consumers have come to rely on in their PC systems and in the
applications that run on them. Thus, most of those who buy information appliances will do so in
addition to, rather than instead of, buying an Intel-compatible PC system. Not surprisingly, then,
sales of PC systems are not expected to suffer on account of the growing consumer interest in
information appliances. It follows that, for the foreseeable future, a firm controlling the licensing
of all Intel-compatible PC operating systems could set prices substantially above competitive
levels without losing an unacceptable amount of business to information appliances.
- Network Computers
24. A network computer system (sometimes called a "thin client") typically contains
central processing components with basic capabilities, certain key peripheral devices (such as a
monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse), an operating system, and a browser. The system contains no
mass storage, however, and it processes little if any data locally. Instead, the system receives
processed data and software as needed from a server across a network. A network computer
system lacks the hardware resources to support an Intel-compatible PC operating system. It
follows that software applications written to run on a specific Intel-compatible PC operating
system will not run on a network computer. Network computers can run applications residing on
a designated server, however. Moreover, a network computer system typically can run
applications residing on other servers, so long as those applications are accessible through Web
sites. The ability to run server-based applications is not exclusive to network computer systems,
however. Generally speaking, any PC system equipped with a browser and an Internet
connection is capable of accessing applications hosted through Web sites.
25. Since the network computing model relies heavily on the processing power and
memory of servers, the requirements for the user's hardware (and thus the price of that hardware)
are low relative to those of an Intel-compatible PC system. Still, a user who already owns a
relatively expensive Intel-compatible PC system is not likely to abandon the investment and
acquire less powerful hardware just because one of the least expensive components of his PC
system the operating system is substantially more expensive than it would be under
competitive conditions. Just as does the Mac OS, the network computing model presents a
somewhat more attractive alternative to the first-time computer buyer. But as in the case where a
prospective purchaser is considering acquiring the Apple alternative, a new buyer considering the
network computing model must choose between types of computer systems. 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).
26. Only a few firms currently market network computer systems, and the systems
have yet to attract substantial consumer demand. In part, this is because PC systems, which can
store and process data locally as well as communicate with a server, have decreased so much in
price as to call into question the value proposition of buying a network computer system. This
fact would not change if the price of an Intel-compatible PC operating system rose significantly,
because the resulting change in the price of an Intel-compatible PC system would be very minor.
Another reason for the limited demand for network computer systems is the fact that few
consumers are in a position to turn from PC systems to network computer systems without
making substantial sacrifices; for the network computing option exhibits significant
shortcomings for current PC owners and first-time buyers alike. The problems of latency,
congestion, asynchrony, and insecurity across a communications network, and contention for
limited processing and memory resources at the remote server, can all result in a substantial
derogation of computing performance. Moreover, the owner of a network computer is required
to enter into long-term dependency upon the owner of a remote server in order to obtain
functionality that would reside within his control if he owned a PC system. If network
computing becomes a viable alternative to PC-based computing, it will be because innovation by
the proponents of the network computing model overcomes these problems, and it will happen
even if Intel-compatible PC operating systems are priced at competitive levels. In any case, that
day has not arrived, nor does it appear imminent.
- Server-Based Computing Generally
27. As the bandwidth available to the average user increases, "portal" Web sites,
which aggregate Web content and provide services such as search engines, E-mail, and travel
reservation systems, could begin to host full lines of the server-based, personal-productivity
applications that have begun to appear in small numbers on the Web. If so, increasing numbers
of computer users equipped with Web browsers and IAP connections could begin to conduct a
significant portion of their computing through these portals. To the extent they might do so,
users probably would not regard the Mac OS's limited stock of compatible applications as the
major drawback to using an Apple PC system that it is today, and they might be increasingly
drawn to network computer systems and information appliances. The variety and ease of use of
server-based applications accessible through browsers would have to increase a great deal from
today's levels, however, before the total costs of dispensing with an Intel-compatible PC
operating system would decline sufficiently to impose a significant constraint on the pricing of
those systems. Again, that day is not imminent; for at least the next few years, the overwhelming
majority of consumers accessing server-based applications will do so using an Intel-compatible
PC system and a browser.
- Middleware
28. Operating systems are not the only software programs that expose APIs to
application developers. The Netscape Web browser and Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Java class
libraries are examples of non-operating system software that do likewise. Such software is often
called "middleware" because it relies on the interfaces provided by the underlying operating
system while simultaneously exposing its own APIs to developers. Currently no middleware
product exposes enough APIs to allow independent software vendors ("ISVs") profitably to write
full-featured personal productivity applications that rely solely on those APIs.
29. Even if middleware deployed enough APIs to support full-featured applications, it
would not function on a computer without an operating system to perform tasks such as
managing hardware resources and controlling peripheral devices. But to the extent the array of
applications relying solely on middleware comes to satisfy all of a user's needs, the user will not
care whether there exists a large number of other applications that are directly compatible with
the underlying operating system. Thus, the growth of middleware-based applications could
lower the costs to users of choosing a non-Intel-compatible PC operating system like the Mac
OS. It remains to be seen, though, whether there will ever be a sustained stream of full-featured
applications written solely to middleware APIs. In any event, it would take several years for
middlware and the applications it supports to evolve from the status quo to a point at which the
cost to the average consumer of choosing a non-Intel compatible PC operating system over an
Intel-compatible one falls so low as to constrain the pricing of the latter systems.
- The Possibility of Supply Responses
30. Firms that do not currently produce Intel-compatible PC operating systems could
do so. What is more, once a firm had written the necessary software code, it could produce
millions of copies of its operating system at relatively low cost. The ability to meet a large
demand is useless, however, if the demand for the product is small, and signs do not indicate
large demand for a new Intel-compatible PC operating system. To the contrary, they indicate
that the demand for a new Intel-compatible PC operating system would be severely constrained
by an intractable "chicken-and-egg" problem: The overwhelming majority of consumers will
only use a PC operating system for which there already exists a large and varied set of high-
quality, full-featured applications, and for which it seems relatively certain that new types of
applications and new versions of existing applications will continue to be marketed at pace with
those written for other operating systems. Unfortunately for firms whose products do not fit that
bill, the porting of applications from one operating system to another is a costly process.
Consequently, software developers generally write applications first, and often exclusively, for
the operating system that is already used by a dominant share of all PC users. Users do not want
to invest in an operating system until it is clear that the system will support generations of
applications that will meet their needs, and developers do not want to invest in writing or quickly
porting applications for an operating system until it is clear that there will be a sizeable and
stable market for it. What is more, consumers who already use one Intel-compatible PC
operating system are even less likely than first-time buyers to choose a newcomer to the field, for
switching to a new system would require these users to scrap the investment they have made in
applications, training, and certain hardware.
31. The chicken-and-egg problem notwithstanding, a firm might reasonably expect to
make a profit by introducing an Intel-compatible PC operating system designed to support a type
of application that satisfies the special interests of a particular subset of users. For example, Be,
Inc. (Be") markets an Intel-compatible PC operating system called BeOS that offers superior
support for multimedia applications, and the operating system enjoys a certain amount of success
with the segment of the consumer population that has a special interest in creating and playing
multimedia content with a PC system. Still, while a niche operating system might turn a profit,
the chicken-and-egg problem (hereinafter referred to as the "applications barrier to entry") would
make it prohibitively expensive for a new Intel-compatible operating system to attract enough
developers and consumers to become a viable alternative to a dominant incumbent in less than a
few years.
32. To the extent that developers begin writing attractive applications that rely solely
on servers or middleware instead of PC operating systems, the applications barrier to entry could
erode. As the Court finds above, however, it remains to be seen whether server- or middleware-
based development will flourish at all. Even if such development were already flourishing, it
would be several years before the applications barrier eroded enough to clear the way for the
relatively rapid emergence of a viable alternative to incumbent Intel-compatible PC operating
systems. It is highly unlikely, then, that a firm not already marketing an Intel-compatible PC
operating system could begin marketing one that would, in less than a few years, present a
significant percentage of consumers with a viable alternative to incumbents.
III.
MICROSOFT'S POWER IN THE RELEVANT MARKET
33. Microsoft enjoys so much power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating
systems that if it wished to exercise this power solely in terms of price, it could charge a price for
Windows substantially above that which could be charged in a competitive market. Moreover, it
could do so for a significant period of time without losing an unacceptable amount of business to
competitors. In other words, Microsoft enjoys monopoly power in the relevant market.
34. Viewed together, three main facts indicate that Microsoft enjoys monopoly power.
First, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems is extremely
large and stable. Second, Microsoft's dominant market share is protected by a high barrier to
entry. Third, and largely as a result of that barrier, Microsoft's customers lack a commercially
viable alternative to Windows.
- Market Share
35. Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world-
wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Every year for the last decade,
Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems has stood above
ninety percent. For the last couple of years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and
analysts project that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. Even if Apple's
Mac OS were included in the relevant market, Microsoft's share would still stand well above
eighty percent.
- The Applications Barrier to Entry
- Description of the Applications Barrier to Entry
36. Microsoft's dominant market share is protected by the same barrier that helps
define the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. As explained above, the
applications barrier would prevent an aspiring entrant into the relevant market from drawing a
significant number of customers away from a dominant incumbent even if the incumbent priced
its products substantially above competitive levels for a significant period of time. Because
Microsoft's market share is so dominant, the barrier has a similar effect within the market: It
prevents Intel-compatible PC operating systems other than Windows from attracting significant
consumer demand, and it would continue to do so even if Microsoft held its prices substantially
above the competitive level.
37. Consumer interest in a PC operating system derives primarily from the ability of
that system to run applications. The consumer wants an operating system that runs not only
types of applications that he knows he will want to use, but also those types in which he might
develop an interest later. Also, the consumer knows that if he chooses an operating system with
enough demand to support multiple applications in each product category, he will be less likely
to find himself straitened later by having to use an application whose features disappoint him.
Finally, the average user knows that, generally speaking, applications improve through
successive versions. He thus wants an operating system for which successive generations of his
favorite applications will be released promptly at that. The fact that a vastly larger number of
applications are written for Windows than for other PC operating systems attracts consumers to
Windows, because it reassures them that their interests will be met as long as they use
Microsoft's product.
38. Software development is characterized by substantial economies of scale. The
fixed costs of producing software, including applications, is very high. By contrast, marginal
costs are very low. Moreover, the costs of developing software are "sunk" once expended to
develop software, resources so devoted cannot be used for another purpose. The result of
economies of scale and sunk costs is that application developers seek to sell as many copies of
their applications as possible. An application that is written for one PC operating system will
operate on another PC operating system only if it is ported to that system, and porting
applications is both time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, application developers tend to
write first to the operating system with the most users Windows. Developers might then port
their applications to other operating systems, but only to the extent that the marginal added sales
justify the cost of porting. In order to recover that cost, ISVs that do go to the effort of porting
frequently set the price of ported applications considerably higher than that of the original
versions written for Windows.
39. Consumer demand for Windows enjoys positive network effects. A positive
network effect is a phenomenon by which the attractiveness of a product increases with the
number of people using it. The fact that there is a multitude of people using Windows makes the
product more attractive to consumers. The large installed base attracts corporate customers who
want to use an operating system that new employees are already likely to know how to use, and it
attracts academic consumers who want to use software that will allow them to share files easily
with colleagues at other institutions. The main reason that demand for Windows experiences
positive network effects, however, is that the size of Windows' installed base impels ISVs to
write applications first and foremost to Windows, thereby ensuring a large body of applications
from which consumers can choose. The large body of applications thus reinforces demand for
Windows, augmenting Microsoft's dominant position and thereby perpetuating ISV incentives to
write applications principally for Windows. This self-reinforcing cycle is often referred to as a
"positive feedback loop."
40. What for Microsoft is a positive feedback loop is for would-be competitors a
vicious cycle. For just as Microsoft's large market share creates incentives for ISVs to develop
applications first and foremost for Windows, the small or non-existent market share of an
aspiring competitor makes it prohibitively expensive for the aspirant to develop its PC operating
system into an acceptable substitute for Windows. To provide a viable substitute for Windows,
another PC operating system would need a large and varied enough base of compatible
applications to reassure consumers that their interests in variety, choice, and currency would be
met to more-or-less the same extent as if they chose Windows. Even if the contender attracted
several thousand compatible applications, it would still look like a gamble from the consumer's
perspective next to Windows, which supports over 70,000 applications. The amount it would
cost an operating system vendor to create that many applications is prohibitively large.
Therefore, in order to ensure the availability of a set of applications comparable to that available
for Windows, a potential rival would need to induce a very large number of ISVs to write to its
operating system.
41. In deciding whether to develop an application for a new operating system, an
ISV's first consideration is the number of users it expects the operating system to attract. Out of
this focus arises a collective-action problem: Each ISV realizes that the new operating system
could attract a significant number of users if enough ISVs developed applications for it; but few
ISVs want to sink resources into developing for the system until it becomes established. Since
everyone is waiting for everyone else to bear the risk of early adoption, the new operating system
has difficulty attracting enough applications to generate a positive feedback loop. The vendor of
a new operating system cannot effectively solve this problem by paying the necessary number of
ISVs to write for its operating system, because the cost of doing so would dwarf the expected
return.
42. Counteracting the collective-action phenomenon is another known as the "first-
mover incentive." For an ISV interested in attracting users, there may be an advantage to
offering the first and, for a while, only application in its category that runs on a new PC operating
system. The user base of the new system may be small, but every user of that system who wants
such an application will be compelled to use the ISV's offering. Moreover, if demand for the
new operating system suddenly explodes, the first mover will reap large sales before any
competitors arrive. An ISV thus might be drawn to a new PC operating system as a "protected
harbor." Once first-movers stake claims to the major categories of applications, however, there
is a strong chance that the new operating system could stall; it would not support the most
familiar applications, nor the variety and number of applications, that attract large numbers of
consumers, and there would no longer exist a first-mover incentive to attract additional ISVs to
the important application categories. Although the upstart operating system might find itself
with enough applications support to hold a fraction of the market, the collective-action
phenomenon would still prevent the system from gaining the kind of positive feedback
momentum that can turn a fringe entrant into a rival that would put competitive pressure on
Windows.
43. The cost to a would-be entrant of inducing ISVs to write applications for its
operating system exceeds the cost that Microsoft itself has faced in inducing ISVs to write
applications for its operating system products, for Microsoft never confronted a highly penetrated
market dominated by a single competitor. 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, if
Microsoft stopped investing the hundreds of millions of dollars it spends each year inducing
ISVs to write applications for Windows, it might become easier than it currently is for a
competitor to develop its own positive feedback loop. But given that Windows today enjoys
overwhelmingly more applications support than any other PC operating system, it would still
take that competitor years to develop the necessary momentum. Plus, while Microsoft may
spend more on platform "evangelization," even in relative terms, than any other PC operating-
system vendor, it is not difficult to understand why it is worthwhile for the principal beneficiary
of the applications barrier to devote more resources to augmenting it than aspiring rivals are
willing to expend in speculative efforts to erode it.
44. Microsoft continually releases "new and improved" versions of its PC operating
system. Each time it does, Microsoft must convince ISVs to write applications that take
advantage of new APIs, so that existing Windows users will have incentive to buy an upgrade.
Since ISVs are usually still earning substantial revenue from applications written for the last
version of Windows, Microsoft must convince them to write for the new version. Even if ISVs
are slow to take advantage of the new APIs, though, no applications barrier stands in the way of
consumers adopting the new system, for Microsoft ensures that successive versions of Windows
retain the ability to run applications developed for earlier versions. In fact, since ISVs know that
consumers do not feel locked into their old versions of Windows and that new versions have
historically attracted substantial consumer demand, ISVs will generally write to new APIs as
long as the interfaces enable attractive, innovative features. Microsoft supplements developers'
incentives by extending various seals of approval' visible to consumers, investors, and
industry analysts to those ISVs that promptly develop new versions of their applications
adapted to the newest version of Windows. In addition, Microsoft works closely with ISVs to
help them adapt their applications to the newest version of the operating system a process that
is in any event far easier than porting an application from one vendor's PC operating system to
another's. In sum, despite the substantial resources Microsoft expends inducing ISVs to develop
applications for new versions of Windows, the company does not face any obstacles nearly as
imposing as the barrier to entry that vendors and would-be vendors of other PC operating
systems must overcome.
- Empirical Evidence of the Applications Barrier to Entry
45. The experiences of IBM and Apple, Microsoft's most significant operating system
rivals in the mid- and late 1990s, confirm the strength of the applications barrier to entry.
- OS/2 Warp
46. IBM's inability to gain widespread developer support for its OS/2 Warp operating
system illustrates how the massive Windows installed base makes it prohibitively costly for a
rival operating system to attract enough developer support to challenge Windows. In late 1994,
IBM introduced its Intel-compatible OS/2 Warp operating system and spent tens of millions of
dollars in an effort to attract ISVs to develop applications for OS/2 and in an attempt to reverse-
engineer, or "clone," part of the Windows API set. Despite these efforts, IBM could obtain
neither significant market share nor ISV support for OS/2 Warp. Thus, although at its peak OS/2
ran approximately 2,500 applications and had 10% of the market for Intel-compatible PC
operating systems, IBM ultimately determined that the applications barrier prevented effective
competition against Windows 95. For that reason, in 1996 IBM stopped trying to convince ISVs
to write for OS/2 Warp. IBM now targets the product at a market niche, namely enterprise
customers (mainly banks) that are interested in particular types of application that run on OS/2
Warp. The fact that IBM no longer tries to compete with Windows is evidenced by the fact that
it prices OS/2 Warp at about two-and-one-half times the price of Windows 98.
- The Mac OS
47. The inability of Apple to compete effectively with Windows provides another
example of the applications barrier to entry in operation. Although Apple's Mac OS supports
more than 12,000 applications, even an inventory of that magnitude is not sufficient to enable
Apple to present a significant percentage of users with a viable substitute for Windows. The
absence of a large installed base, in turn, reinforces the disparity between the applications made
available for the Mac OS and those made available for Windows, further inhibiting Apple's
sales. The applications barrier thus prevents the Mac OS from hindering Microsoft's ability to
control price, regardless of whether the Mac OS is regarded as being in the relevant market or
not.
- Fringe Operating Systems
48. The applications barrier to entry does not prevent non-Microsoft, Intel-compatible
PC operating systems from attracting enough consumer demand and ISV support to survive. It
does not even prevent vendors of those products from making a profit. The barrier does,
however, prevent the products from drawing a significant percentage of consumers away from
Windows.
49. As discussed above, Be markets an Intel-compatible PC operating system, called
BeOS, that is specially suited to support multimedia functions. The operating system survives on
a relatively minuscule number of applications (approximately 1,000) and a user base which, at
around 750,000, is trivial compared to the number of Windows users. One of the reasons the
BeOS can even attract that many users despite its small base of applications is that it advertises
itself as a complement to, rather than as a substitute for, Windows. Although the BeOS could
run an Intel-compatible PC system without Windows, it is almost always loaded on a system
along with Windows. What is more, when these dual-loaded PC systems are turned on,
Windows automatically boots; the user must then take affirmative steps to invoke the BeOS.
While this scheme allows the BeOS to occupy a niche in the market, it does not place the product
on a trajectory to replace Windows on a significant number of PCs. The special multimedia
support provided by the BeOS may, for a small number of users, outweigh the disadvantages of
maintaining two large, complex operating systems on one PC. Of that group, however, it is
likely that only a tiny number of users will find that support so attractive that they would be
willing to forego Windows, and its huge base of compatible applications, altogether.
50. The experience of the Linux operating system, a version of which runs on Intel-
compatible PCs, similarly fails to refute the existence of an applications barrier to entry. Linux
is an "open source" operating system that was created, and is continuously updated, by a global
network of software developers who contribute their labor for free. Although Linux has between
ten and fifteen million users, the majority of them use the operating system to run servers, not
PCs. Several ISVs have announced their development of (or plans to develop) Linux versions of
their applications. To date, though, legions of ISVs have not followed the lead of these first
movers. Similarly, consumers have by and large shown little inclination to abandon Windows,
with its reliable developer support, in favor of an operating system whose future in the PC realm
is unclear. By itself, Linux's open-source development model shows no signs of liberating that
operating system from the cycle of consumer preferences and developer incentives that, when
fueled by Windows' enormous reservoir of applications, prevents non-Microsoft operating
systems from competing.
- Open-Source Applications Development
51. Since application developers working under an open-source model are not looking
to recoup their investment and make a profit by selling copies of their finished products, they are
free from the imperative that compels proprietary developers to concentrate their efforts on
Windows. In theory, then, open-source developers are at least as likely to develop applications
for a non-Microsoft operating system as they are to write Windows-compatible applications. In
fact, they may be disposed ideologically to focus their efforts on open-source platforms like
Linux. Fortunately for Microsoft, however, there are only so many developers in the world
willing to devote their talents to writing, testing, and debugging software pro bono publico. A
small corps may be willing to concentrate its efforts on popular applications, such as browsers
and office productivity applications, that are of value to most users. It is unlikely, though, that a
sufficient number of open-source developers will commit to developing and continually updating
the large variety of applications that an operating system would need to attract in order to present
a significant number of users with a viable alternative to Windows. In practice, then, the open-
source model of applications development may increase the base of applications that run on non-
Microsoft PC operating systems, but it cannot dissolve the barrier that prevents such operating
systems from challenging Windows.
- Cloning the 32-Bit Windows APIs
52. Theoretically, the developer of a non-Microsoft, Intel-compatible PC operating
system could circumvent the applications barrier to entry by cloning the APIs exposed by the 32-
bit versions of Windows (Windows 9x and Windows NT). Applications written for Windows
would then also run on the rival system, and consumers could use the rival system confident in
that knowledge. Translating this theory into practice is virtually impossible, however. First of
all, cloning the thousands of APIs already exposed by Windows would be an enormously
expensive undertaking. More daunting is the fact that Microsoft continually adds APIs to
Windows through updates and new versions. By the time a rival finished cloning the APIs
currently in existence, Windows would have exposed a multitude of new ones. Since the rival
would never catch up, it would never be able to assure consumers that its operating system would
run all of the applications written for Windows. IBM discovered this to its dismay in the mid-
1990s when it failed, despite a massive investment, to clone a sufficiently large part of the 32-bit
Windows APIs. In short, attempting to clone the 32-bit Windows APIs is such an expensive,
uncertain undertaking that it fails to present a practical option for a would-be competitor to
Windows.
- Viable Alternatives to Windows
53. That Microsoft's market share and the applications barrier to entry together
endow the company with monopoly power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating
systems is directly evidenced by the sustained absence of realistic commercial alternatives to
Microsoft's PC operating-system products.
54. OEMs are the most important direct customers for operating systems for Intel-
compatible PCs. Because competition among OEMs is intense, they pay particularly close
attention to consumer demand. OEMs are thus not only important customers in their own right,
they are also surrogates for consumers in identifying reasonably-available commercial
alternatives to Windows. 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. For example, in 1995, at a time when
IBM still placed hope in OS/2's ability to rival Windows, the firm nevertheless calculated that its
PC company would lose between seventy and ninety percent of its sales volume if failed to load
Windows 95 on its PCs. Although a few OEMs have announced their intention to pre-install
Linux on some of the computers they ship, none of them plan to install Linux in lieu of Windows
on any appreciable number of PC (as opposed to server) systems. For its part, Be is not even
attempting to persuade OEMs to install the BeOS on PCs to the exclusion of Windows.
55. OEMs believe that the likelihood of a viable alternative to Windows emerging
any time in the next few years is too low to constrain Microsoft from raising prices or imposing
other burdens on customers and users. The accuracy of this belief is highlighted by the fact that
the other vendors of Intel-compatible PC operating systems do not view their own offerings as
viable alternatives to Windows. Microsoft knows that OEMs have no choice but to load
Windows, both because it has a good understanding of the market in which it operates and
because OEMs have told Microsoft as much. Indicative of Microsoft's assessment of the
situation is the fact that, in a 1996 presentation to the firm's executive committee, the Microsoft
executive in charge of OEM licensing reported that piracy continued to be the main competition
to the company's operating system products. Secure in this knowledge, Microsoft did not
consider the prices of other Intel-compatible PC operating systems when it set the price of
Windows 98.
56. As the Court found above, the growth of server- and middleware-based
applications development might eventually weaken the applications barrier to entry. This would
not only make it easier for outside firms to enter the market, it could also make it easier for non-
Microsoft firms already in the market to present a viable alternative to Windows. But as the
Court also found above, it is not clear whether ISVs will ever develop a large, diverse body of
full-featured applications that rely solely on APIs exposed by servers and middleware.
Furthermore, even assuming that such a movement has already begun in earnest, it will take
several years for the applications barrier to erode enough to enable a non-Microsoft, Intel-
compatible PC operating system to develop into a viable alternative to Windows.
- Price Restraint Posed by Microsoft's Installed Base
57. Software never expires, so consumers who already have a version of Windows
with which they are content and who are not shopping for a new PC system are somewhat
reluctant to incur the cost of upgrading to a new version of Windows. Fortunately for Microsoft,
the pace of innovation in PC hardware is rapid, and the price of that hardware has declined
steadily in recent years. As a result, existing PC users buy new PC systems relatively frequently,
and OEMs still attract at a healthy rate buyers who have never owned a computer. The license
for one of Microsoft's operating system products prohibits the user from transferring the
operating system to another machine, so there is no legal secondary market in Microsoft
operating systems. This means that any consumer who buys a new Intel-compatible PC and
wants Windows must buy a new copy of the operating system. Microsoft takes pains to ensure
that the versions of its operating system that OEMs pre-install on new PC systems are the most
current. It does this, in part, by increasing the price to OEMs of older versions of Windows
when the newer versions are released. Since Microsoft can sell so many copies of each new
operating system through the sales of new PC systems, the average price it sets for those systems
is little affected by the fact that older versions of Windows never wear out.
- Price Restraint Posed by Piracy
58. Although there is no legal secondary market for Microsoft's PC operating
systems, there is a thriving illegal one. Software pirates illegally copy software products such as
Windows, selling each copy for a fraction of the vendor's usual price. One of the ways
Microsoft combats piracy is by advising OEMs that they will be charged a higher price for
Windows unless they drastically limit the number of PCs that they sell without an operating
system pre-installed. In 1998, all major OEMs agreed to this restriction. Naturally, it is hard to
sell a pirated copy of Windows to a consumer who has already received a legal copy included in
the price of his new PC system. Thus, Microsoft is able to effectively contain, if not extinguish,
the illegal secondary market for its operating-system products. 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.
- Price Restraint Posed by Long-Term Threats
59. The software industry in general is characterized by dynamic, vigorous
competition. In many cases, one of the early entrants into a new software category quickly
captures a lion's share of the sales, while other products in the category are either driven out
altogether or relegated to niche positions. What eventually displaces the leader is often not
competition from another product within the same software category, but rather a technological
advance that renders the boundaries defining the category obsolete. These events, in which
categories are redefined and leaders are superseded in the process, are spoken of as "inflection
points."
60. The exponential growth of the Internet represents an inflection point born of
complementary technological advances in the computer and telecommunications industries. The
rise of the Internet in turn has fueled the growth of server-based computing, middleware, and
open-source software development. Working together, these nascent paradigms could oust the
PC operating system from its position as the primary platform for applications development and
the main interface between users and their computers. Microsoft recognizes that new paradigms
could arise to depreciate the value of selling PC operating systems; however, the fact that these
new paradigms already exist in embryonic or primitive form does not prevent Microsoft from
enjoying monopoly power today. For while consumers might one day turn to network
computers, or Linux, or a combination of middleware and some other operating system, as an
alternative to Windows, the fact remains that they are not doing so today. Nor are consumers
likely to do so in appreciable numbers any time in the next few years. Unless and until that day
arrives, no significant percentage of consumers will be able to abandon Windows without
incurring substantial costs. Microsoft can therefore set the price of Windows substantially higher
than that which would be charged in a competitive market or impose other burdens on
consumers without losing so much business as to make the action unprofitable. If Microsoft
exerted its power solely to raise price, the day when users could turn away from Windows
without incurring substantial costs would still be several years distant. Moreover, Microsoft
could keep its prices high for a significant period of time and still lower them in time to meet the
threat of a new paradigm. Alternatively, Microsoft could delay the arrival of a new paradigm on
the scene by expending surplus monopoly power in ways other than the maintenance of high
prices.
- Significance of Microsoft's Innovation
61. The fact that Microsoft invests heavily in research and development does not
evidence a lack of monopoly power. Indeed, Microsoft has incentives to innovate aggressively
despite its monopoly power. First, if there are innovations that will make Intel-compatible PC
systems attractive to more consumers, and those consumers less sensitive to the price of
Windows, the innovations will translate into increased profits for Microsoft. Second, although
Microsoft could significantly restrict its investment in innovation and still not face a viable
alternative to Windows for several years, it can push the emergence of competition even farther
into the future by continuing to innovate aggressively. While Microsoft may not be able to stave
off all potential paradigm shifts through innovation, it can thwart some and delay others by
improving its own products to the greater satisfaction of consumers.
- Microsoft's Pricing Behavior
62. Microsoft's actual pricing behavior is consistent with the proposition that the firm
enjoys monopoly power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. 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.
One would expect a firm in a competitive market to pay much closer attention to the prices
charged by other firms in the market. Another indication of monopoly power is the fact that
Microsoft raised the price that it charged OEMs for Windows 95, with trivial exceptions, to the
same level as the price it charged for Windows 98 just prior to releasing the newer product. In a
competitive market, one would expect the price of an older operating system to stay the same or
decrease upon the release of a newer, more attractive version. Microsoft, however, was only
concerned with inducing OEMs to ship Windows 98 in favor of the older version. It is unlikely
that Microsoft would have imposed this price increase if it were genuinely concerned that OEMs
might shift their business to another vendor of operating systems or hasten the development of
viable alternatives to Windows.
63. Finally, it is indicative of monopoly power that Microsoft felt that it had
substantial discretion in setting the price of its Windows 98 upgrade product (the operating
system product it sells to existing users of Windows 95). A Microsoft study from November
1997 reveals that the company could have charged $49 for an upgrade to Windows 98 there is
no reason to believe that the $49 price would have been unprofitable but the study identifies
$89 as the revenue-maximizing price. Microsoft thus opted for the higher price.
64. An aspect of Microsoft's pricing behavior that, while not tending to prove
monopoly power, is consistent with it is the fact that the firm charges different OEMs different
prices for Windows, depending on the degree to which the individual OEMs comply with
Microsoft's wishes. Among the five largest OEMs, Gateway and IBM, which in various ways
have resisted Microsoft's efforts to enlist them in its efforts to preserve the applications barrier to
entry, pay higher prices than Compaq, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, which have pursued less
contentious relationships with Microsoft.
65. It is not possible with the available data to determine with any level of confidence
whether the price that a profit-maximizing firm with monopoly power would charge for
Windows 98 comports with the price that Microsoft actually charges. Even if it could be
determined that Microsoft charges less than the profit-maximizing monopoly price, though, that
would not be probative of a lack of monopoly power, for Microsoft could be charging what
seems like a low short-term price in order to maximize its profits in the future for reasons
unrelated to underselling any incipient competitors. For instance, Microsoft could be stimulating
the growth of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems by keeping the price of
Windows low today. Given the size and stability of its market share, Microsoft stands to reap
almost all of the future rewards if there are yet more consumers of Intel-compatible PC operating
systems. By pricing low relative to the short-run profit-maximizing price, thereby focusing on
attracting new users to the Windows platform, Microsoft would also intensify the positive
network effects that add to the impenetrability of the applications barrier to entry.
66. Furthermore, Microsoft expends a significant portion of its monopoly power,
which could otherwise be spent maximizing price, on imposing burdensome restrictions on its
customers and in inducing them to behave in ways that augment and prolong that
monopoly power. For example, Microsoft attaches to a Windows license conditions that restrict
the ability of OEMs to promote software that Microsoft believes could weaken the applications
barrier to entry. Microsoft also charges a lower price to OEMs who agree to ensure that all of
their Windows machines are powerful enough to run Windows NT for Workstations. To the
extent this provision induces OEMs to concentrate their efforts on the development of relatively
powerful, expensive PCs, it makes OEMs less likely to pursue simultaneously the opposite path
of developing "thin client" systems, which could threaten demand for Microsoft's Intel-
compatible PC operating system products. In addition, Microsoft charges a lower price to OEMs
who agree to ship all but a minute fraction of their machines with an operating system pre-
installed. While this helps combat piracy, it also makes it less likely that consumers will detect
increases in the price of Windows and renders operating systems not pre-installed by OEMs in
large numbers even less attractive to consumers. After all, a consumer's interest in a non-
Windows operating system might not outweigh the burdens on system memory and performance
associated with supporting two operating systems on a single PC. Other such restrictions and
incentives are described below.
- Microsoft's Actions Toward Other Firms
67. Microsoft's monopoly power is also evidenced by the fact that, over the course of
several years, Microsoft took actions that could only have been advantageous if they operated to
reinforce monopoly power. These actions are described below.
IV.
THE MIDDLEWARE THREATS
68. Middleware technologies, as previously noted, have the potential to weaken the
applications barrier to entry. Microsoft was apprehensive that the APIs exposed by middleware
technologies would attract so much developer interest, and would become so numerous and
varied, that there would arise a substantial and growing number of full-featured applications that
relied largely, or even wholly, on middleware APIs. The applications relying largely on
middleware APIs would potentially be relatively easy to port from one operating system to
another. The applications relying exclusively on middleware APIs would run, as written, on any
operating system hosting the requisite middleware. So the more popular middleware became and
the more APIs it exposed, the more the positive feedback loop that sustains the applications
barrier to entry would dissipate. Microsoft was concerned with middleware as a category of
software; each type of middleware contributed to the threat posed by the entire category. At the
same time, Microsoft focused its antipathy on two incarnations of middleware that, working
together, had the potential to weaken the applications barrier severely without the assistance of
any other middleware. These were Netscape's Web browser and Sun's implementation of the
Java technologies.
- The Netscape Web browser
69. Netscape Navigator possesses three key middleware attributes that endow it with
the potential to diminish the applications barrier to entry. First, in contrast to non-Microsoft,
Intel-compatible PC operating systems, which few users would want to use on the same PC
systems that carry their copies of Windows, a browser can gain widespread use based on its value
as a complement to Windows. Second, because Navigator exposes a set (albeit a limited one) of
APIs, it can serve as a platform for other software used by consumers. A browser product is
particularly well positioned to serve as a platform for network-centric applications that run in
association with Web pages. Finally, Navigator has been ported to more than fifteen different
operating systems. Thus, if a developer writes an application that relies solely on the APIs
exposed by Navigator, that application will, without any porting, run on many different operating
systems.
70. Adding to Navigator's potential to weaken the applications barrier to entry is the
fact that the Internet has become both a major inducement for consumers to buy PCs for the first
time and a major occupier of the time and attention of current PCs users. For any firm looking to
turn its browser product into an applications platform such to rival Windows, the intense
consumer interest in all things Internet-related is a great boon.
71. Microsoft knew in the fall of 1994 that Netscape was developing versions of a
Web browser to run on different operating systems. 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. In fact, in late December 1994, Netscape's chairman and
chief executive officer ("CEO"), Jim Clark, told a Microsoft executive that the focus of
Netscape's business would be applications running on servers and that Netscape did not intend to
succeed at Microsoft's expense.
72. As soon as Netscape released Navigator on December 15, 1994, the product began
to enjoy dramatic acceptance by the public; shortly after its release, consumers were already
using Navigator far more than any other browser product. This alarmed Microsoft, which feared
that Navigator's enthusiastic reception could embolden Netscape to develop Navigator into an
alternative platform for applications development. In late May 1995, Bill Gates, the chairman
and CEO of Microsoft, sent a memorandum entitled "The Internet Tidal Wave" to Microsoft's
executives describing Netscape as a "new competitor born' on the Internet." He warned his
colleagues within Microsoft that Netscape was "pursuing a multi-platform strategy where they
move the key API into the client to commoditize the underlying operating system." By the late
spring of 1995, the executives responsible for setting Microsoft's corporate strategy were deeply
concerned that Netscape was moving its business in a direction that could diminish the
applications barrier to entry.
- Sun's Implementation of the Java Technologies
73. The term "Java" refers to four interlocking elements. First, there is a Java
programming language with which developers can write applications. Second, there is a set of
programs written in Java that expose APIs on which developers writing in Java can rely. These
programs are called the "Java class libraries." The third element is the Java compiler, which
translates the code written by the developer into Java "bytecode." Finally, there are programs
called "Java virtual machines," or "JVMs," which translate Java bytecode into instructions
comprehensible to the underlying operating system. If the Java class libraries and a JVM are
present on a PC system, the system is said to carry a "Java runtime environment."
74. The inventors of Java at Sun Microsystems intended the technology to enable
applications written in the Java language to run on a variety of platforms with minimal porting.
A program written in Java and relying only on APIs exposed by the Java class libraries will run
on any PC system containing a JVM that has itself been ported to the resident operating system.
Therefore, Java developers need to port their applications only to the extent that those
applications rely directly on the APIs exposed by a particular operating system. The more an
application written in Java relies on APIs exposed by the Java class libraries, the less work its
developer will need to do to port the application to different operating systems. The easier it is
for developers to port their applications to different operating systems, the more applications will
be written for operating systems other than Windows. To date, the Java class libraries do not
expose enough APIs to support the development of full-featured applications that will run well
on multiple operating systems without the need for porting; however, they do allow relatively
simple, network-centric applications to be written cross-platform. It is Sun's ultimate ambition
to expand the class libraries to such an extent that many full-featured, end-user-oriented
applications will be written cross-platform. The closer Sun gets to this goal of "write once, run
anywhere," the more the applications barrier to entry will erode.
75. Sun announced in May 1995 that it had developed the Java programming
language. Mid-level executives at Microsoft began to express concern about Sun's Java vision in
the fall of that year, and by late spring of 1996, senior Microsoft executives were deeply worried
about the potential of Sun's Java technologies to diminish the applications barrier to entry.
76. Sun's strategy could only succeed if a Java runtime environment that complied
with Sun's standards found its way onto PC systems running Windows. Sun could not count on
Microsoft to ship with Windows an implementation of the Java runtime environment that
threatened the applications barrier to entry. Fortunately for Sun, Netscape agreed in May 1995 to
include a copy of Sun's Java runtime environment with every copy of Navigator, and Navigator
quickly became the principal vehicle by which Sun placed copies of its Java runtime
environment on the PC systems of Windows users.
77. The combined efforts of Netscape and Sun threatened to hasten the demise of the
applications barrier to entry, opening the way for non-Microsoft operating systems to emerge as
acceptable substitutes for Windows. By stimulating the development of network-centric Java
applications accessible to users through browser products, the collaboration of Netscape and Sun
also heralded the day when vendors of information appliances and network computers could
present users with viable alternatives to PCs themselves. Nevertheless, these middleware
technologies have a long way to go before they might imperil the applications barrier to entry.
Windows 98 exposes nearly ten thousand APIs, whereas the combined APIs of Navigator and the
Java class libraries, together representing the greatest hope for proponents of middleware, total
less than a thousand. Decision-makers at Microsoft are apprehensive of potential as well as
present threats, though, and in 1995 the implications of the symbiosis between Navigator and
Sun's Java implementation were not lost on executives at Microsoft, who viewed Netscape's
cooperation with Sun as a further reason to dread the increasing use of Navigator.
- Other Middleware Threats
78. Although they have been the most prominent, Netscape's Navigator and Sun's
Java implementation are not the only manifestations of middleware that Microsoft has perceived
as having the potential to weaken the applications barrier to entry. Starting in 1994, Microsoft
exhibited considerable concern over the software product Notes, distributed first by Lotus and
then by IBM. Microsoft worried about Notes for several reasons: It presented a graphical
interface that was common across multiple operating systems; it also exposed a set of APIs to
developers; and, like Navigator, it served as a distribution vehicle for Sun's Java runtime
environment. Then in 1995, Microsoft reacted with alarm to Intel's Native Signal Processing
software, which interacted with the microprocessor independently of the operating system and
exposed APIs directly to developers of multimedia content. Finally, in 1997 Microsoft noted the
dangers of Apple's and RealNetworks' multimedia playback technologies, which ran on several
platforms (including the Mac OS and Windows) and similarly exposed APIs to content
developers. Microsoft feared all of these technologies because they facilitated the development
of user-oriented software that would be indifferent to the identity of the underlying operating
system.
V.
MICROSOFT'S RESPONSE TO THE BROWSER THREAT
- Microsoft's Attempt to Dissuade Netscape from Developing Navigator as a
Platform
79. Microsoft's first response to the threat posed by Navigator was an effort to
persuade Netscape to structure its business such that the company would not distribute platform-
level browsing software for Windows. Netscape's assent would have ensured that, for the
foreseeable future, Microsoft would produce the only platform-level browsing software
distributed to run on Windows. This would have eliminated the prospect that non-Microsoft
browsing software could weaken the applications barrier to entry.
80. Executives at Microsoft received confirmation in early May 1995 that Netscape
was developing a version of Navigator to run on Windows 95, which was due to be released in a
couple of months. Microsoft's senior executives understood that if they could prevent this
version of Navigator from presenting alternatives to the Internet-related APIs in Windows 95, the
technologies branded as Navigator would cease to present an alternative platform to developers.
Even if non-Windows versions of Navigator exposed Internet-related APIs, applications written
to those APIs would not run on the platform Microsoft executives expected to enjoy the largest
installed base, i.e., Windows 95. So, as long as the version of Navigator written for Windows 95
relied on Microsoft's Internet-related APIs instead of exposing its own, developing for Navigator
would not mean developing cross-platform. Developers of network-centric applications thus
would not be drawn to Navigator's APIs in substantial numbers. Therefore, with the
encouragement and support of Gates, a group of Microsoft executives commenced a campaign in
the summer of 1995 to convince Netscape to halt its development of platform-level browsing
technologies for Windows 95.
81. In a meeting held at Microsoft's headquarters on June 2, 1995, Microsoft
executives suggested to Jim Clark's replacement as CEO at Netscape, James Barksdale, that the
version of Navigator written for Windows 95 be designed to rely upon the Internet-related APIs
in Windows 95 and distinguish itself with "value-added" software components. The Microsoft
executives left unsaid the fact that value-added software, by definition, does not present a
significant platform for applications development. For his part, Barksdale informed the
Microsoft representatives that the browser represented an important part of Netscape's business
strategy and that Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 were expected to be the primary platforms for
which Navigator would be distributed.
82. At the conclusion of the June 2 meeting, Microsoft still did not know whether or
not Netscape intended to preserve Navigator's own platform capabilities and expand the set of
APIs that it exposed to developers. In the hope that Netscape could still be persuaded to
forswear any platform ambitions and instead rely on the Internet technologies in Windows 95,
Microsoft accepted Barksdale's invitation to send a group of representatives to Netscape's
headquarters for a technology "brainstorming session" on June 21. Netscape's senior executives
saw the meeting as an opportunity to ask Microsoft for access to crucial technical information,
including certain APIs, that Netscape needed in order to ensure that Navigator would work well
on systems running Windows 95.
83. Early in the June 21 meeting, Microsoft representatives told Barksdale and the
other Netscape executives present that they wanted to explore the possibility of building a
broader and closer relationship between the two companies. To this end, the Microsoft
representatives wanted to know whether Netscape intended to adopt and build on top of the
Internet-related platform that Microsoft planned to include in Windows 95, or rather to expose its
own Internet-related APIs, which would compete with Microsoft's. If Netscape was not
committed to providing an alternative platform for network-centric applications, Microsoft
would assist Netscape in developing server- and (to a limited extent) PC-based software
applications that relied on Microsoft's Internet technologies. For one thing, the representatives
explained, Microsoft would be content to leave the development of browser products for the Mac
OS, UNIX, and Microsoft's 16-bit operating system products to Netscape. Alternatively,
Netscape could license to Microsoft the underlying code for a Microsoft-branded browser to run
on those platforms. The Microsoft representatives made it clear, however, that Microsoft would
be marketing its own browser for Windows 95, and that this product would rely on Microsoft's
platform-level Internet technologies. If Netscape marketed browsing software for Windows 95
based on different technologies, then Microsoft would view Netscape as a competitor, not a
partner.
84. When Barksdale brought the discussion back to the particular Windows 95 APIs
that Netscape actually wanted to rely on and needed from Microsoft, the representatives from
Microsoft explained that if Netscape entered a "special relationship" with Microsoft, the
company would treat Netscape as a "preferred ISV." This meant that Netscape would enjoy
preferential access to technical information, including APIs. They intimated that Microsoft's
internal developers had already created the APIs that Netscape was seeking, and that Microsoft
had not yet decided either which ISVs would be privileged to receive them or when access would
be granted. The Microsoft representatives made clear that the alacrity with which Netscape
would receive the desired Windows 95 APIs and other technical information would depend on
whether Netscape entered this "special relationship" with Microsoft.
85. After listening to Microsoft's proposal, Barksdale had two main questions: First,
where would the line between platform (Microsoft's exclusive domain) and applications (where
Netscape could continue to function) be situated? Second, who would get to decide where the
line would lie? After all, the attractiveness of a special relationship with Microsoft depended a
great deal on how much room would remain for Netscape to innovate and seek profit. The
Microsoft representatives replied that Microsoft would incorporate most of the functionality of
the current Netscape browser into the Windows 95 platform, perhaps leaving room for Netscape
to distribute a user-interface shell. Where Netscape would have the most scope to innovate
would be in the development of software "solutions," which are applications (mainly server-
based) focused on meeting the needs of specific types of commercial users. Since such
applications are already minutely calibrated to the needs of their users, they do not present
platforms for the development of more specific applications. Although the representatives from
Microsoft assured Barksdale that the line between platform and solutions was fixed by a
collaborative decision-making process between Microsoft and its ISV partners, those
representatives had already indicated that the space Netscape would be allowed to occupy
between the user and Microsoft's platform domain was a very narrow one. Simply put, if
Navigator exposed APIs that competed for developer attention with the Internet-related APIs
Microsoft was planning to build into its platform, Microsoft would regard Netscape as a
trespasser on its territory.
86. The Microsoft representatives did not insist at the June 21 meeting that Netscape
executives accept their proposal on the spot. For his part, Barksdale said only that he would like
more information regarding where Microsoft proposed to place the line between its platform and
Netscape's applications. In the ensuing, more technical discussions, the Netscape executives
agreed to adopt one component of Microsoft's platform-level Internet technology called Internet
Shortcuts. The meeting ended cordially, with both sides promising to keep the lines of
communication open.
87. The executive who led Microsoft's contingent on June 21, Daniel Rosen, emerged
from the meeting optimistic that Netscape would abandon its platform ambitions in exchange for
special help from Microsoft in developing solutions. His sentiments were not shared by another
Microsoft participant, Thomas Reardon, who had not failed to notice the Netscape executives
grow tense when the Microsoft representatives referred to incorporating Navigator's
functionality into Windows. Reardon predicted that Netscape would compete with almost all of
Microsoft's platform-level Internet technologies. Once he heard both viewpoints, Gates
concluded that Rosen was being a bit naive and that Reardon had assessed the situation more
accurately. In the middle of July 1995, Rosen's superiors instructed him to drop the effort to
reach a strategic concord with Netscape.
88. Had Netscape accepted Microsoft's proposal, it would have forfeited any prospect
of presenting a comprehensive platform for the development of network-centric applications.
Even if the versions of Navigator written for the Mac OS, UNIX, and 16-bit Windows had
continued to expose APIs controlled by Netscape, the fact that Netscape would not have
marketed any platform software for Windows 95, the operating system that was destined to
become dominant, would have ensured that, for the foreseeable future, too few developers would
rely on Navigator's APIs to create a threat to the applications barrier to entry. In fact, although
the discussions ended before Microsoft was compelled to demarcate precisely where the
boundary between its platform and Netscape's applications would lie, it is unclear whether
Netscape's acceptance of Microsoft's proposal would have left the firm with even the ability to
survive as an independent business.
89. At the time Microsoft presented its proposal, Navigator was the only browser
product with a significant share of the market and thus the only one with the potential to weaken
the applications barrier to entry. 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.
- Withholding Crucial Technical Information
90. Microsoft knew that Netscape needed certain critical technical information and
assistance in order to complete its Windows 95 version of Navigator in time for the retail release
of Windows 95. Indeed, Netscape executives had made a point of requesting this information,
especially the so-called Remote Network Access ("RNA") API, at the June 21 meeting. As was
discussed above, the Microsoft representatives at the meeting had responded that the haste with
which Netscape received the desired technical information would depend on whether Netscape
entered the so-called "special relationship" with Microsoft. Specifically, Microsoft
representative J. Allard had told Barksdale that the way in which the two companies concluded
the meeting would determine whether Netscape received the RNA API immediately or in three
months.
91. Although Netscape declined the special relationship with Microsoft, its executives
continued, over the weeks following the June 21 meeting, to plead for the RNA API. Despite
Netscape's persistence, Microsoft did not release the API to Netscape until late October, i.e., as
Allard had warned, more than three months later. The delay in turn forced Netscape to postpone
the release of its Windows 95 browser until substantially after the release of Windows 95 (and
Internet Explorer) in August 1995. As a result, Netscape was excluded from most of the holiday
selling season.
92. Microsoft similarly withheld a scripting tool that Netscape needed to make its
browser compatible with certain dial-up ISPs. Microsoft had licensed the tool freely to ISPs that
wanted it, and in fact had cooperated with Netscape in drafting a license agreement that, by mid-
July 1996, needed only to be signed by an authorized Microsoft executive to go into effect.
There the process halted, however. In mid-August, a Microsoft representative informed
Netscape that senior executives at Microsoft had decided to link the grant of the license to the
resolution of all open issues between the companies. Netscape never received a license to the
scripting tool, and as a result, was unable to do business with certain ISPs for a time.
- The Similar Experiences of Other Firms in Dealing with Microsoft
93. Other firms in the computer industry have had encounters with Microsoft similar
to the experiences of Netscape described above. These interactions demonstrate that it is
Microsoft's corporate practice to pressure other firms to halt software development that either
shows the potential to weaken the applications barrier to entry or competes directly with
Microsoft's most cherished software products.
- Intel
94. At the same time that Microsoft was trying to convince Netscape to stop
developing cross-platform APIs, it was trying to convince Intel to halt the development of
software that presented developers with a set of operating-system-independent interfaces.
95. Although Intel is engaged principally in the design and manufacture of
microprocessors, it also develops some software. Intel's software development efforts, which
take place at the Intel Architecture Labs ("IAL"), are directed primarily at finding useful ways to
consume more microprocessor cycles, thereby stimulating demand for advanced Intel
microprocessors. By early 1995, IAL was in the advanced stages of developing software that
would enable Intel 80x86 microprocessors to carry out tasks usually performed by separate chips
known as "digital signal processors." By enabling this migration, the software, called Native
Signal Processing ("NSP") software, would endow Intel microprocessors with substantially
enhanced video and graphics performance.
96. Intel was eager for software developers and hardware manufacturers to write
software and build peripheral devices that would implement the enhanced capabilities that its
microprocessors and its NSP software together offered. Intel did not believe, however, that the
set of APIs and device driver interfaces ("DDIs") in Windows had kept pace with the growing
ability of Intel's microprocessors to deliver audio/visual content. Consequently, IAL designed
its NSP software to expose Intel's own APIs and DDIs that, when invoked by developers and
hardware manufacturers, would demonstrate the multimedia capabilities of an Intel
microprocessor utilizing NSP.
97. Microsoft reacted to Intel's NSP software with alarm. First of all, the software
threatened to offer ISVs and device manufacturers an alternative to waiting for Windows to
provide system-level support for products that would take advantage of advances in hardware
technology. More troubling was the fact that Intel was developing versions of its NSP software
for non-Microsoft operating systems. The different versions of the NSP software exposed the
same set of software interfaces to developers, so the more an application took advantage of
interfaces exposed by NSP software, the easier it would be to port that application to non-
Microsoft operating systems. In short, Intel's NSP software bore the potential to weaken the
barrier protecting Microsoft's monopoly power.
98. Over time, Microsoft developed additional qualms about Intel's NSP software.
For instance, Intel initially designed the NSP software to be compatible with only Windows 3.1.
At the time, Microsoft was preparing to release Windows 95, and the company did not want
anything rekindling the interest of ISVs, equipment manufacturers, and consumers in the soon-
to-be obsolescent version of Windows. More acute was Microsoft's concern that users who
received NSP software on their Windows 3.1 systems would have difficulty upgrading those
systems to Windows 95. By June 1995, Intel had completed a pre-release, or "beta," version of
its NSP software for Windows 95, but Microsoft worried that a commercial version would not be
ready by the time OEMs began loading Windows 95.
99. Along with its concerns about contemporaneous compatibility, Microsoft also
complained that Intel had not subjected its software to sufficient quality-assurance testing.
Microsoft was quick to point out that if Windows users detected problems with the software that
came pre-installed on their PC systems, they would blame Microsoft or the OEMs, even if fault
lay with Intel. Microsoft's concerns with compatibility and quality were genuine. Both pre-
dating and over-shadowing these transient and remediable concerns, however, was a more
abiding fear at Microsoft that the NSP software would render ISVs, device manufacturers, and
(ultimately) consumers less dependent on Windows. Without this fear, Microsoft would not
have subjected Intel to the level of pressure that it brought to bear in the summer of 1995.
100. Microsoft began complaining to Intel about its NSP software in inter-company
communications sent in the spring of 1995. In May, Microsoft raised the profile of its
complaints by sending some of its senior executives to Intel to discuss the latter's incursion into
Microsoft's platform territory. Returning from the May meeting, one Microsoft employee urged
his superiors to refuse to allow Intel to offer platform-level software, even if it meant that Intel
could not innovate as quickly as it would like. If Intel wished to enable a new function, the
employee wrote, its only "winning path" would be to convince Microsoft to support the effort in
its platform software. At any rate, "[s]ometimes Intel would have to accept the outcome that the
time isn't right for [Microsoft]." In the first week of July, Gates himself met with Intel's CEO,
Andrew Grove, to discuss, among other things, NSP. In a subsequent memorandum to senior
Microsoft executives, Gates reported that he had tried to convince Grove "to basically not ship
NSP" and more generally to reduce the number of people working on software at Intel.
101. The development of an alternative platform to challenge Windows was not the
primary objective of Intel's NSP efforts. In fact, Intel was interested in providing APIs and DDIs
only to the extent the effort was necessary to ensure the development of applications and devices
that would spark demand for Intel's most advanced microprocessors. Understanding Intel's
limited ambitions, Microsoft hastened to assure Intel that if it would stop promoting NSP's
interfaces, Microsoft would accelerate its own work to incorporate the functions of the NSP
software into Windows, thereby stimulating the development of applications and devices that
relied on the new capabilities of Intel's microprocessors. At the same time, Microsoft pressured
the major OEMs to not install NSP software on their PCs until the software ceased to expose
APIs. NSP software could not find its way onto PCs without the cooperation of the OEMs, so
Intel realized that it had no choice but to surrender the pace of software innovation to Microsoft.
By the end of July 1995, Intel had agreed to stop promoting its NSP software. Microsoft
subsequently incorporated some of NSP's components into its operating-system products. Even
as late as the end of 1998, though, Microsoft still had not implemented key capabilities that Intel
had been poised to offer consumers in 1995.
102. Microsoft was not content to merely quash Intel's NSP software. At a second
meeting at Intel's headquarters on August 2, 1995, Gates told Grove that he had a fundamental
problem with Intel using revenues from its microprocessor business to fund the development and
distribution of free platform-level software. In fact, Gates said, Intel could not count on
Microsoft to support Intel's next generation of microprocessors as long as Intel was developing
platform-level software that competed with Windows. Intel's senior executives knew full well
that Intel would have difficultly selling PC microprocessors if Microsoft stopped cooperating in
making them compatible with Windows and if Microsoft stated to OEMs that it did not support
Intel's chips. Faced with Gates' threat, Intel agreed to stop developing platform-level interfaces
that might draw support away from interfaces exposed by Windows.
103. OEMs represent the primary customers for Intel's microprocessors. Since OEMs
are dependent on Microsoft for Windows, Microsoft enjoys continuing leverage over Intel. To
illustrate, Gates was able to report to other senior Microsoft executives in October 1995 that
"Intel feels we have all the OEMs on hold with our NSP chill." He added:
This is good news because it means OEMs are listening to us. Andy [Grove]
believes Intel is living up to its part of the NSP bargain and that we should let
OEMs know that some of the new software work Intel is doing is OK. If Intel is
not sticking totally to its part of the deal let me know.
- Apple
104. QuickTime is Apple's software architecture for creating, editing, publishing, and
playing back multimedia content (e.g., audio, video, graphics, and 3-D graphics). Apple has
created versions of QuickTime to run on both the Mac OS and Windows, enabling developers
using the authoring software to create multimedia content that will run on QuickTime
implementations for both operating systems. QuickTime competes with Microsoft's own
multimedia technologies, including Microsoft's multimedia APIs (called "DirectX") and its
media player. Because QuickTime is cross-platform middleware, Microsoft perceives it as a
potential threat to the applications barrier to entry.
105. Beginning in the spring of 1997 and continuing into the summer of 1998,
Microsoft tried to persuade Apple to stop producing a Windows 95 version of its multimedia
playback software, which presented developers of multimedia content with alternatives to
Microsoft's multimedia APIs. If Apple acceded to the proposal, Microsoft executives said,
Microsoft would not enter the authoring business and would instead assist Apple in developing
and selling tools for developers writing multimedia content. Just as Netscape would have been
free, had it accepted Microsoft's proposal, to market a browser shell that would run on top of
Microsoft's Internet technologies, Apple would have been permitted, without hindrance, to
market a media player that would run on top of DirectX. But, like the browser shell that
Microsoft contemplated as acceptable for Netscape to develop, Apple's QuickTime shell would
not have exposed platform-level APIs to developers. Microsoft executives acknowledged to
Apple their doubts that a firm could make a successful business out of marketing such a shell.
Apple might find it profitable, though, to continue developing multimedia software for the Mac
OS, and that, the executives from Microsoft assured Apple, would not be objectionable. As was
the case with the Internet technologies it was prepared to tolerate from Netscape, Microsoft felt
secure in the conviction that developers would not be drawn in large numbers to write for non-
Microsoft APIs exposed by platforms whose installed bases were inconsequential in comparison
with that of Windows.
106. In their discussions with Apple, Microsoft's representatives made it clear that, if
Apple continued to market multimedia playback software for Windows 95 that presented a
platform for content development, then Microsoft would enter the authoring business to ensure
that those writing multimedia content for Windows 95 concentrated on Microsoft's APIs instead
of Apple's. The Microsoft representatives further stated that, if Microsoft was compelled to
develop and market authoring tools in competition with Apple, the technologies provided in
those tools might very well be inconsistent with those provided by Apple's tools. Finally, the
Microsoft executives warned, Microsoft would invest whatever resources were necessary to
ensure that developers used its tools; its investment would not be constrained by the fact that
authoring software generated only modest revenue.
107. If Microsoft implemented technologies in its tools that were different from those
implemented in Apple's tools, then multimedia content developed with Microsoft's tools would
not run properly on Apple's media player, and content developed with Apple's tools would not
run properly on Microsoft's media player. If, as it implied it was willing to do, Microsoft then
bundled its media player with Windows and used a variety of tactics to limit the distribution of
Apple's media player for Windows, it could succeed in extinguishing developer support for
Apple's multimedia technologies. Indeed, as the Court discusses in Section VI of these findings,
Microsoft had begun, in 1996, to use just such a strategy against Sun's implementation of the
Java technologies.
108. The discussions over multimedia playback software culminated in a meeting
between executives from Microsoft and Apple executives, including Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, at
Apple's headquarters on June 15, 1998. Microsoft's objective at the meeting was to secure
Apple's commitment to abandon the development of multimedia playback software for
Windows. At the meeting, one of the Microsoft executives, Eric Engstrom, said that he hoped
the two companies could agree on a single configuration of software to play multimedia content
on Windows. He added, significantly, that any unified multimedia playback software for
Windows would have to be based on DirectX. If Apple would agree to make DirectX the
standard, Microsoft would be willing to do several things that Apple might find beneficial. First,
Microsoft would adopt Apple's ".MOV" as the universal file format for multimedia playback on
Windows. Second, Microsoft would configure the Windows Media Player to display the
QuickTime logo during the playback of ".MOV" files. Third, Microsoft would include support
in DirectX for QuickTime APIs used to author multimedia content, and Microsoft would give
Apple appropriate credit for the APIs in Microsoft's Software Developer Kit.
109. Jobs reserved comment during the meeting with the Microsoft representatives, but
he explicitly rejected Microsoft's proposal a few weeks later. Had Apple accepted Microsoft's
proposal, Microsoft would have succeeded in limiting substantially the cross-platform
development of multimedia content. In addition, Apple's future success in marketing authoring
tools for Windows 95 would have become dependent on Microsoft's ongoing cooperation, for
those tools would have relied on the DirectX technologies under Microsoft's control.
110. Apple's surrender of the multimedia playback business might have helped users in
the short term by resolving existing incompatibilities in the arena of multimedia software. In the
long run, however, the departure of an experienced, innovative competitor would not have tended
to benefit users of multimedia content. At any rate, the primary motivation behind Microsoft's
proposal to Apple was not the resolution of incompatibilities that frustrated consumers and
stymied content development. Rather, Microsoft's motivation was its desire to limit as much as
possible the development of multimedia content that would run cross-platform.
- RealNetworks
111. RealNetworks is the leader, in terms of usage share, in software that supports the
"streaming" of audio and video content from the Web. RealNetworks' streaming software
presents a set of APIs that competes for developer attention with APIs exposed by the streaming
technologies in Microsoft's DirectX. Like Apple, RealNetworks has developed versions of its
software for multiple operating systems. In 1997, senior Microsoft executives viewed
RealNetworks' streaming software with the same apprehension with which they viewed Apple's
playback software as competitive technology that could develop into part of a middleware
layer that could, in turn, become broad and widespread enough to weaken the applications barrier
to entry.
112. At the end of May 1997, Gates told a group of Microsoft executives that
multimedia streaming represented strategic ground that Microsoft needed to capture. He
identified RealNetworks as the adversary and authorized the payment of up to $65 million for a
streaming software company in order to accelerate Microsoft's effort to seize control of
streaming standards. Two weeks later, Microsoft signed a letter of intent for the acquisition of a
streaming media company called VXtreme.
113. Perhaps sensing an impending crisis, executives at RealNetworks contacted
Microsoft within days of the VXtreme deal's announcement and proposed that the two
companies enter a strategic relationship. The CEO of RealNetworks told a senior vice president
at Microsoft that if RealNetworks were presented with a profitable opportunity to move to value-
added software, the company would be amenable to abandoning the base streaming business. On
July 10, a Microsoft executive, Robert Muglia, told a RealNetworks executive that it would
indeed be in the interests of both companies if RealNetworks limited itself to developing value-
added software designed to run on top of Microsoft's fundamental multimedia platform.
Consequently, on July 18, Microsoft and RealNetworks entered into an agreement whereby
Microsoft agreed to distribute a copy of RealNetworks' media player with each copy of Internet
Explorer; to make a substantial investment in RealNetworks; to license the source code for
certain RealNetworks streaming technologies; and to develop, along with RealNetworks, a
common file format for streaming audio and video content. Muglia, who signed the agreement
on Microsoft's behalf, believed that RealNetworks had in turn agreed to incorporate Microsoft's
streaming media technologies into its products.
114. RealNetworks apparently understood import of the agreement differently, for just
a few days after it signed the deal with Microsoft, RealNetworks announced that it planned to
continue developing fundamental streaming software. Indeed, RealNetworks continues to do so
today. Thus, the mid-summer negotiations did not lead to the result Microsoft had intended.
Still, Microsoft's intentions toward RealNetworks in 1997, and its dealings with the company
that summer, show that decision-makers at Microsoft were willing to invest a large amount of
cash and other resources into securing the agreement of other companies to halt software
development that exhibited discernible potential to weaken the applications barrier.
- IBM
115. IBM is both a hardware and a software company. On the hardware side, IBM
manufactures and licenses, among other things, Intel-compatible PCs. On the software side,
IBM develops and sells, among other things, Intel-compatible PC operating systems and office
productivity applications. The IBM PC Company relies heavily on Microsoft's cooperation to
make a profit, for few consumers would buy IBM PC systems if those systems did not work well
with Windows and, further, if they did not come with Windows included. IBM's software
division, on the other hand, competes directly with Microsoft in other respects. For instance,
IBM has in the past marketed OS/2 as an alternative to Windows, and it currently markets the
SmartSuite bundle of office productivity applications as an alternative to Microsoft's Office
suite. The fact that IBM's software division markets products that compete directly with
Microsoft's most profitable products has frustrated the efforts of the IBM PC Company to
maintain a cooperative relationship with the firm that controls the product (Windows) without
which the PC Company cannot survive.
116. Whereas Microsoft tried to convince Netscape to move its business in a direction
that would not facilitate the emergence of products that would compete with Windows, Microsoft
tried to convince IBM to move its business away from products that themselves competed
directly with Windows and Office. Microsoft leveraged the fact that the PC Company needed to
license Windows at a competitive price and on a timely basis, and the fact that the company
needed Microsoft's support in many more subtle ways. When IBM refused to abate the
promotion of those of its own products that competed with Windows and Office, Microsoft
punished the IBM PC Company with higher prices, a late license for Windows 95, and the
withholding of technical and marketing support.
117. In the summer of 1994, the IBM PC Company told Microsoft that, with respect to
licensing Microsoft's operating-system products, it wanted to be quoted terms just as favorable
as those extended to IBM's competitor, Compaq. It was IBM's belief that Compaq paid the
lowest rate in the industry for Windows and enjoyed unparalleled marketing and technical
support from Microsoft. In response to the IBM PC Company's request, Microsoft proposed that
the companies enter into a "Frontline Partnership" similar to the one that existed between
Microsoft and Compaq. Pursuant to that proposal, Microsoft and the IBM PC Company would
perform joint sales, marketing, and development work, and the PC Company would receive
future Microsoft products at the lowest rates in the industry.
118. At the same time that it offered the IBM PC Company the rather general terms in
the Frontline Partnership Agreement, Microsoft also offered the PC Company specific reductions
in the royalty rate for Windows 95 if the company would focus its marketing and distribution
efforts on Microsoft's new operating system. Specifically, the PC Company would receive an $8
reduction in the per-copy royalty for Windows 95 if it mentioned no other operating systems in
advertisements for IBM PCs, adopted Windows 95 as the standard operating system for its
employees, and ensured that it was shipping Windows 95 pre-installed on at least fifty percent of
its PCs two months after the release of Windows 95. Given the volume of IBM's PC shipments,
the discount would have amounted to savings of between $40 million and $48 million in one
year. Of course, accepting the terms would have required IBM, as a practical matter, to abandon
its own operating system, OS/2. After all, IBM would have had difficulty convincing customers
to adopt its own OS/2 if the company itself had used Microsoft's Windows 95 and had featured
that product to the exclusion of OS/2 in IBM PC advertisements.
119. Representatives from IBM and Microsoft, including Bill Gates, met to discuss the
relationship between their companies at an industry conference in November 1994. At that
meeting, IBM informed Microsoft that, rather than enter into the Frontline Partnership with
Microsoft, IBM was going to pursue an initiative it called "IBM First." Consistent with the title
of the initiative, IBM would aggressively promote IBM's software products, would not promote
any Microsoft products, and would pre-install OS/2 Warp on all of its PCs, including those on
which it would also pre-install Windows. IBM thus rejected the terms that would have resulted
in an $8 reduction in the per-copy royalty price of Windows 95.
120. True to its word, IBM began vigorous promotion of its software products. This
effort included an advertising campaign, starting in late 1994, that extolled OS/2 Warp and
disparaged Windows. IBM's drive to best Microsoft in the PC software venue intensified in
June 1995, when IBM reached an agreement with the Lotus Development Corporation for the
acquisition of that company. As a consequence of the acquisition, IBM took ownership of the
Lotus groupware product, Lotus Notes, and the Lotus SmartSuite bundle of office productivity
applications. Microsoft had already identified Notes as a middleware threat, because it presented
users with a common interface, and ISVs with a common set of APIs, across multiple platforms.
For its part, SmartSuite competed directly with Microsoft Office. In mid-July 1995, IBM
announced that it was going to make SmartSuite its primary desktop software offering in the
United States.
121. Microsoft did not intend to capitulate. In July, Gates called an executive at the
IBM PC Company to berate him about IBM's public statements denigrating Windows. Just a
few days later, Microsoft began to retaliate in earnest against the IBM PC Company.
122. The IBM PC Company had begun negotiations with Microsoft for a Windows 95
license in late March 1995. For the first two months, the negotiations had progressed smoothly
and at an expected pace. After IBM announced its intention to acquire Lotus, though, the
Microsoft negotiators began canceling meetings with their IBM counterparts, failing to return
telephone calls, and delaying the return of marked-up license drafts that they received from IBM.
Then, on July 20, 1995, just three days after IBM announced its intention to pre-install
SmartSuite on its PCs, a Microsoft executive informed his counterpart at the IBM PC Company
that Microsoft was terminating further negotiations with IBM for a license to Windows 95.
Microsoft also refused to release to the PC Company the Windows 95 "golden master" code.
The PC Company needed the code for its product planning and development, and IBM
executives knew that Microsoft had released it to IBM's OEM competitors on July 17.
Microsoft's purported reason for halting the negotiations was that it wanted first to resolve an
ongoing audit of IBM's past royalty payments to Microsoft for several different operating
systems.
123. Prior to the call on July 20, neither company's management had ever linked the
ongoing audit to IBM's negotiations for a license to Windows 95. IBM was dismayed by the
abrupt halt in the license negotiations and the prospect that it might not get a license for
Windows 95 until the audit process concluded. IBM's executives executives surmised that all of
its major competitors had already signed licenses for Windows 95. The PC Company would lose
a great deal of business to those competitors during the crucial back-to-school season if it could
not begin pre-installing Windows 95 on its PCs immediately. The conclusion of the audit
appeared to be weeks, if not months, away. The PC Company thus faced the prospect of missing
the holiday selling season as well. IBM executives pleaded with Microsoft to uncouple the
license negotiations from the ongoing audit and offered Microsoft a $10 million bond that
Microsoft could use to indemnify itself against any discrepancies that the audit might ultimately
reveal. IBM also offered to add a term to any Windows 95 license agreement whereby IBM
would pay penalties and interest if any future audit disclosed under-reporting of royalties by
IBM.
124. On August 9, 1995, a senior executive at the IBM PC Company went to Redmond
to meet with Joachim Kempin, the Microsoft executive in charge of the firm's sales to OEMs.
At the meeting, Kempin offered to accept a single, lump-sum payment from IBM that would
close all outstanding audits. The amount of this payment would be reduced if IBM offered a
concession that Kempin could take back to Gates. As one possibility, Kempin suggested that
IBM agree to not bundle SmartSuite with its PCs for a period of six months to one year. He
explained that the prospect of IBM bundling SmartSuite with its PCs threatened the profit
margins that Microsoft derived from Office and constituted a core issue in the relationship
between the two companies. The IBM executive rejected Kempin's suggestion. In a follow-up
letter, Kempin stated that Microsoft would require approximately $25 million from IBM in order
to settle all outstanding audits. Kempin reiterated that,
If you believe that the amount I am asking for is too much, I would be willing to
trade certain relationship improving measures for the settlement charges and/or
convert some of the amounts into marketing funds if IBM too agrees to promote
Microsoft's software products together with their hardware offerings.
The message was clear: IBM could resolve the impasse ostensibly blocking the issuance of a
Windows 95 license the royalties audit by de-emphasizing those products of its own that
competed with Microsoft and instead promoting Microsoft's products.
125. IBM never agreed to renounce SmartSuite or to increase its support for Microsoft
software, and in the end, Microsoft did not grant IBM a license to pre-install Windows 95 until
fifteen minutes before the start of Microsoft's official launch event on August 24, 1995. That
same day, the firms brought the audit issue to a close with a settlement agreement under which
IBM ultimately paid Microsoft $31 million. The release of Windows 95 had been postponed
more than once, and many consumers apparently had been postponing buying PC systems until
the new operating system arrived. The pent-up demand caused an initial surge in the sales of
PCs loaded with Windows 95. IBM's OEM competitors reaped the fruits of this surge, but
because of the delay in obtaining a license, the IBM PC Company did not. The PC Company
also missed the back-to-school market. These lost opportunities cost IBM substantial revenue.
126. Even once the companies had resolved the audit dispute, Microsoft continued to
treat the IBM PC Company less favorably than it did the other major OEMs, and Microsoft
executives continued to tell PC Company executives that the treatment would improve only if
IBM refrained from competing with Microsoft's software offerings. On January 5, 1996,
Kempin sent a letter to a counterpart at the IBM PC Company. In it, Kempin expressed his
belief that the PC Company would enjoy a closer, more cooperative relationship with Microsoft
if only IBM's software arm did not compete as aggressively with the products that comprised the
core of Microsoft's business:
As long as IBM is working first on their competitive offerings and prefers
to fiercely compete with us in critical areas, we should just be honest with each
other and admit that such priorities will not lead to a most exciting relationship
and might not even make IBM feel good when selling solutions based on
Microsoft products. . . .You are a valued OEM customer of Microsoft, with whom
we will cooperate as much as your self-imposed restraints allow us to do. Please
understand that this is neither my choice or preferred way of doing business with
an important company like IBM. In addition, we would like to see the IBM PC
company being more actively involved in assisting Microsoft to bring key
products to market . . . . To date the IBM PC company has not always been an
active participant in these areas - understandable given your own internal product
priorities. I hope you can help me to change this.
In closing, Kempin wrote, "You get measured in selling more hardware and I firmly believe if
you had less conflict with IBM's software directions you actually could sell more of it."
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. After all, the more PC systems IBM sold with SmartSuite, the fewer copies of Office
Microsoft could sell. For this reason, as Kempin explained to a group of IBM PC Company
representatives in August 1996, Microsoft refused to provide IBM press releases with quotes
endorsing any PC system that IBM shipped with SmartSuite. Microsoft later expanded that rule
to cover any IBM PCs shipped with the World Book electronic encyclopedia instead of
Microsoft's Encarta. IBM might have been less concerned about Microsoft's refusal to offer
endorsements if such quotes did not appear frequently and prominently in press releases
announcing new PC systems from other OEMs such as Compaq. Microsoft's conspicuous
silence with respect to IBM PCs sent the message to customers that IBM's PCs did not support
Windows as well as PCs manufactured by other OEMs did.
128. Microsoft also denied the IBM PC Company access to the so-called "enabling
programs" that Microsoft ran for the benefit of OEMs such as Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, and
DEC, even though IBM met the prescribed objective criteria for admission. Like the absence of
public endorsements, IBM's exclusion from Microsoft's enabling programs led customers to
question whether the Microsoft software they needed would work optimally with IBM's PCs.
IBM learned through surveys it conducted that the firm had lost between seven and ten large
accounts, representing about $180 million in revenue for IBM, because the tension between
Microsoft and IBM led customers to doubt that Windows would not work as well with IBM PCs
as with PCs produced by firms with which Microsoft was on cordial terms. Microsoft justified
its exclusion of the PC Company from the enabling programs with its suspicion that IBM might
use the programs to gain entrée with customers and then attempt to sell those customers IBM
software instead of Microsoft products. At the same time, a Microsoft executive told a
counterpart at IBM that the PC Company would be admitted to the programs when IBM's CEO
repaired his relationship with Bill Gates.
129. Microsoft's executives were persistent despite IBM's repeated refusals to sacrifice
its own software ambitions to improve its relations with Microsoft. In February 1997, one
executive from Microsoft told a group of IBM PC Company executives that Gates might relent in
his reluctance to cooperate with their company if IBM moderated its support for Notes and
SmartSuite. In a meeting held the next month, Microsoft representatives conditioned fulfillment
of two objects of IBM's desires on the company's willingness to pre-install Microsoft's products
in the place of competing applications, such as SmartSuite, and objectionable middleware, such
as Notes. The first inducement that the Microsoft representatives blandished before the PC
Company was early access to Windows source code, which Compaq and a handful of other
OEMs enjoyed. IBM wanted this early access in order to ensure its hardware's contemporaneous
compatibility with Microsoft's operating system products. Next, Microsoft offered IBM
permission to certify itself as being compliant with certain hardware requirements that Microsoft
imposed (and that customers had come to look for as a sign of an OEM's ability to support
Windows). 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. With respect to both benefits, the representatives from Microsoft explained that
Microsoft would extend them to the PC Company on the condition that it stop loading its PC
systems with software that threatened Microsoft's interests.
130. The discriminatory treatment that the IBM PC Company received from Microsoft
on account of the "software directions" of its parent company also manifested itself in the royalty
price that IBM paid for Windows. In the latter half of the 1990s, IBM (along with Gateway) paid
significantly more for Windows than other major OEMs (like Compaq, Dell, and Hewlett-
Packard) that were more compliant with Microsoft's wishes.
131. Finally, Microsoft made its frustration known to IBM by reducing, from three to
one, the number of Microsoft OEM account managers handling Microsoft's operational
relationship with the IBM PC Company. This reduced support impaired still further IBM's
ability to test, manufacture, and ship its PCs on schedule, further delaying IBM's efforts to bring
its PC products to market against the competition in a timely manner.
132. In sum, from 1994 to 1997 Microsoft consistently pressured IBM to reduce its
support for software products that competed with Microsoft's offerings, and it used its monopoly
power in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems to punish IBM for its refusal to
cooperate. Whereas, in the case of Netscape, Microsoft tried to induce a company to move its
business away from offering software that could weaken the applications barrier to entry,
Microsoft's primary concern with IBM was to reduce the firm's support for software products
that competed directly with Microsoft's most profitable products, namely Windows and Office.
That being said, it must be noted that one of the IBM products to which Microsoft objected,
Notes, was like Navigator in that it exposed middleware APIs. In any event, Microsoft's
interactions with Netscape, IBM, Intel, Apple, and RealNetworks all reveal Microsoft's business
strategy of directing its monopoly power toward inducing other companies to abandon projects
that threaten Microsoft and toward punishing those companies that resist.
- Developing Competitive Web Browsing Software
133. Once it became clear to senior executives at Microsoft that Netscape would not
abandon its efforts to develop Navigator into a platform, Microsoft focused its efforts on
ensuring that few developers would write their applications to rely on the APIs that Navigator
exposed. Developers would only write to the APIs exposed by Navigator in numbers large
enough to threaten the applications barrier if they believed that Navigator would emerge as the
standard software employed to browse the Web. If Microsoft could demonstrate that Navigator
would not become the standard, because Microsoft's own browser would attract just as much if
not more usage, then developers would continue to focus their efforts on a platform that enjoyed
enduring ubiquity: the 32-bit Windows API set. Microsoft thus set out to maximize Internet
Explorer's share of browser usage at Navigator's expense.
134. Microsoft's management believed that, no matter what the firm did, Internet
Explorer would not capture a large share of browser usage as long as it remained markedly
inferior to Navigator in the estimation of consumers. The task of technical personnel at
Microsoft, then, was to make Internet Explorer's features at least as attractive to consumers as
Navigator's. Microsoft did not believe that improved quality alone would depose Navigator, for
millions of users appeared to be satisfied with Netscape's product, and Netscape was known as
the Internet company.' As Gates wrote to Microsoft's executive staff in his May 1995 "Internet
Tidal Wave" memorandum, "First we need to offer a decent client," but "this alone won't get
people to switch away from Netscape." Still, once Microsoft ensured that the average consumer
would be just as comfortable browsing with Internet Explorer as with Navigator, Microsoft could
employ other devices to induce consumers to use its browser instead of Netscape's.
135. From 1995 onward, Microsoft spent more than $100 million each year developing
Internet Explorer. The firm's management gradually increased the number of developers
working on Internet Explorer from five or six in early 1995 to more than one thousand in 1999.
Although the first version of Internet Explorer was demonstrably inferior to Netscape's then-
current browser product when the former was released in July 1995, Microsoft's investment
eventually started to pay technological dividends. When Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0
in late 1996, reviewers praised its vastly improved quality, and some even rated it as favorably as
they did Navigator. After the arrival of Internet Explorer 4.0 in late 1997, the number of
reviewers who regarded it as the superior product was roughly equal to those who preferred
Navigator.
- Giving Internet Explorer Away and Rewarding Firms that Helped Build Its
Usage Share
136. In addition to improving the quality of Internet Explorer, Microsoft sought to
increase the product's share of browser usage by giving it away for free. In many cases,
Microsoft also gave other firms things of value (at substantial cost to Microsoft) in exchange for
their commitment to distribute and promote Internet Explorer, sometimes explicitly at
Navigator's expense. While Microsoft might have bundled Internet Explorer with Windows at
no additional charge even absent its determination to preserve the applications barrier to entry,
that determination was the main force driving its decision to price the product at zero.
Furthermore, Microsoft would not have given Internet Explorer away to IAPs, ISVs, and Apple,
nor would it have taken on the high cost of enlisting firms in its campaign to maximize Internet
Explorer's usage share and limit Navigator's, had it not been focused on protecting the
applications barrier.
137. In early 1995, personnel developing Internet Explorer at Microsoft contemplated
charging OEMs and others for the product when it was released. Internet Explorer would have
been included in a bundle of software that would have been sold as an add-on, or "frosting," to
Windows 95. Indeed, Microsoft knew by the middle of 1995, if not earlier, that Netscape
charged customers to license Navigator, and that Netscape derived a significant portion of its
revenue from selling browser licenses. Despite the opportunity to make a substantial amount of
revenue from the sale of Internet Explorer, and with the knowledge that the dominant browser
product on the market, Navigator, was being licensed at a price, senior executives at Microsoft
decided that Microsoft needed to give its browser away in furtherance of the larger strategic goal
of accelerating Internet Explorer's acquisition of browser usage share. Consequently, Microsoft
decided not to charge an increment in price when it included Internet Explorer in Windows for
the first time, and it has continued this policy ever since. In addition, Microsoft has never
charged for an Internet Explorer license when it is distributed separately from Windows.
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. Whenever competing priorities threatened to intervene,
decision-makers at Microsoft reminded those reporting to them that browser usage share
remained, as Microsoft senior vice president Paul Maritz put it, "job #1." For example, in the
summer of 1997, some mid-level employees began to urge that Microsoft charge a price for at
least some of the components of Internet Explorer 4.0. This would have shifted some
anticipatory demand to Windows 98 (which was due to be released somewhat later than Internet
Explorer 4.0), since Windows 98 would include all of the browser at no extra charge. Senior
executives at Microsoft rejected the proposal, because while the move might have increased
demand for Windows 98 and generated substantial revenue, it would have done so at the
unacceptable cost of retarding the dissemination of Internet Explorer 4.0. Maritz reminded those
who had advocated the proposal that "getting browser share up to 50% (or more) is still the
major goal."
139. The transcendent importance of browser usage share to Microsoft is evident in
what the firm expended, as well as in what it relinquished, in order to maximize usage share for
Internet Explorer and to diminish it for Navigator. Not only was Microsoft willing to forego an
opportunity to attract substantial revenue while enhancing (albeit temporarily) consumer demand
for Windows 98, but the company also paid huge sums of money, and sacrificed many millions
more in lost revenue every year, in order to induce firms to take actions that would help increase
Internet Explorer's share of browser usage at Navigator's expense. First, even though Microsoft
could have charged IAPs, ISVs, and Apple for licenses to distribute Internet Explorer separately
from Windows, Microsoft priced those licenses, along with related technology and technical
support, at zero in order to induce those companies to distribute and promote Internet Explorer
over Navigator. Second, although Microsoft could have charged IAPs and ICPs substantial sums
of money in exchange for promoting their services and content within Windows, Microsoft
instead bartered Windows' valuable desktop "real estate" for a commitment from those firms to
promote and distribute Internet Explorer, to inhibit promotion and distribution of Navigator, and
to employ technologies that would inspire developers to write Web sites that relied on
Microsoft's Internet technologies rather than those provided by Navigator. Microsoft was
willing to offer such prominent placement even to AOL, which was the principal competitor to
Microsoft's MSN service. If an IAP was already under contract to pay Netscape a certain
amount for browser licenses, Microsoft offered to compensate the IAP the amount it owed
Netscape. Third, Microsoft also reduced the referral fees that IAPs paid when users signed up
for their services using the Internet Referral Server in Windows in exchange for the IAPs' efforts
to convert their installed bases of subscribers from Navigator to Internet Explorer. For example,
Microsoft entered a contract with AOL whereby Microsoft actually paid AOL a bounty for every
subscriber that it converted to access software that included Internet Explorer instead of
Navigator. Finally, with respect to OEMs, Microsoft extended co-marketing funds and
reductions in the Windows royalty price to those agreeing to promote Internet Explorer and, in
some cases, to abstain from promoting Navigator.
140. Even absent the strategic imperative to maximize its browser usage share at
Netscape's expense, Microsoft might still have set the price of an Internet Explorer consumer
license at zero. It might also have spent something approaching the $100 million it has devoted
each year to developing Internet Explorer and some part of the $30 million it has spent annually
marketing it. After all, consumers in 1995 were already demanding software that enabled them
to use the Web with ease, and IBM had announced in September 1994 its plan to include
browsing capability in OS/2 Warp at no extra charge. Microsoft had reason to believe that other
operating-system vendors would do the same.
141. Still, had Microsoft not viewed browser usage share as the key to preserving the
applications barrier to entry, the company would not have taken its efforts beyond developing a
competitive browser product, including it with Windows at no additional cost to consumers, and
promoting it with advertising. Microsoft would not have absorbed the considerable additional
costs associated with enlisting other firms in its campaign to increase Internet Explorer's usage
share at Navigator's expense. This investment was only profitable to the extent that it protected
the applications barrier to entry. Neither the desire to bolster demand for Windows, nor the
prospect of ancillary revenues, explains the lengths to which Microsoft has gone. For one thing,
loading Navigator makes Windows just as Internet-ready as including Internet Explorer does.
Therefore, Microsoft's costly efforts to limit the use of Navigator on Windows could not have
stemmed from a desire to bolster consumer demand for Windows. Furthermore, there is no
conceivable way that Microsoft's costly efforts to induce Apple to pre-install Internet Explorer
on Apple's own PC systems could have increased consumer demand for Windows.
142. In pursuing its goal of maximizing Internet Explorer's usage share, Microsoft
actually has limited rather severely the number of profit centers from which it could otherwise
derive income via Internet Explorer. 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. Even if
Microsoft maximized its ancillary revenue, the amount of revenue realized would not come close
to recouping the cost of its campaign to maximize Internet Explorer's usage share at Navigator's
expense. The countless communications that Microsoft's executives dispatched to each other
about the company's need to capture browser usage share indicate that the purpose of the effort
had little to do with attracting ancillary revenues and everything to do with protecting the
applications barrier from the threat posed by Netscape's Navigator and Sun's implementation of
Java. For example, Microsoft vice president Brad Chase told the company's assembled sales and
marketing executives in April 1996 that they should "worry about your browser share [ ] as much
as BillG" even though Internet Explorer was "a no revenue product," because "we will lose [sic]
the Internet platform battle if we do not have a significant user installed base." He told them that
"if you let your customers deploy Netscape Navigator, you will loose [sic] leadership on the
desktop."
- Excluding Navigator from Important Distribution Channels
143. Decision-makers at Microsoft worried that simply developing its own attractive
browser product, pricing it at zero, and promoting it vigorously would not divert enough browser
usage from Navigator to neutralize it as a platform. They believed that a comparable browser
product offered at no charge would still not be compelling enough to consumers to detract
substantially from Navigator's existing share of browser usage. This belief was due, at least in
part, to the fact that Navigator already enjoyed a very large installed base and had become nearly
synonymous with the Web in the public's consciousness. If Microsoft was going to raise
Internet Explorer's share of browser usage and lower Navigator's share, executives at Microsoft
believed they needed to constrict Netscape's access to the distribution channels that led most
efficiently to browser usage.
- The Importance of the OEM and IAP Channels
144. Very soon after it recognized the need to gain browser usage share at Navigator's
expense, Microsoft identified pre-installation by OEMs and bundling with the proprietary client
software of IAPs as the two distribution channels that lead most efficiently to browser usage.
Two main reasons explain why these channels are so efficient. First, users must acquire a
computer and connect to the Internet before they can browse the Web. Thus, the OEM and IAP
channels lead directly to virtually every user of browsing software. Second, both OEMs and
IAPs are able to place browsing software at the immediate disposal of a user without any effort
on the part of the user. If an OEM pre-installs a browser onto its PCs and places an icon for that
browser on the default screen, or "desktop," of the operating system, purchasers of those PCs
will be confronted with the icon as soon as the operating system finishes loading into random
access memory ("RAM"). If an IAP bundles a browser with its own proprietary software, its
subscribers will, by default, use the browser whenever they connect to the Web. In its internal
decision-making, Microsoft has placed considerable reliance on studies showing that consumers
tend strongly to use whatever browsing software is placed most readily at their disposal, and that
once they have acquired, found, and used one browser product, most are reluctant and indeed
have little reason to expend the effort to switch to another. Microsoft has also relied on
studies showing that a very large majority of those who browse the Web obtain their browsing
software with either their PCs or their IAP subscriptions.
145. Indeed, no other distribution channel for browsing software even approaches the
efficiency of OEM pre-installation and IAP bundling. The primary reason is that the other
channels require users to expend effort before they can start browsing. The traditional retail
channel, for example, requires the consumer to make contact with a retailer, and retailers
generally do not distribute products without charging a price for them. Naturally, once Microsoft
and Netscape began offering browsing software for free, consumers for the most part lost all
incentive to pay for it.
146. The relatively few users who already have a browser but would prefer another can
avoid the retail channel by using the Internet to download new browsing software electronically,
but they must wait for the software to transmit to their PCs. 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. The longer it takes for the
software to download, the more likely it is that the user's connection to the Internet will be
interrupted. As a vanguard of the "Internet Age," Navigator generated a tremendous amount of
excitement in its early days among technical sophisticates, who were willing to devote time and
effort to downloading the software. Today, however, the average Web user is more of a
neophyte, and is far more likely to be intimidated by the process of downloading. 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.
147. The consumer who receives a CD-ROM containing a free browser in the mail or
as a magazine insert is at least spared the time and effort it would take to obtain browsing
software from a retail vendor or to download it from the Web. But, just as the consumer who
obtains a browser at retail or off the Web, the consumer who receives the software unsolicited at
home must first install it on a PC system in order to use it, and merely installing a browser
product takes time and can be confusing for novice users. Plus, a large percentage of the
unsolicited disks distributed through "carpet bombing" reach individuals who do not have PCs,
who already have pre-installed browsing software, or who have no interest in browsing the Web.
In practice, less than two percent of CD-ROM disks disseminated in mass-distribution campaigns
are used in the way the distributor intended. As a result, this form of distribution is rarely
profitable, and then only when undertaken by on-line subscription services for whom a sale
translates into a stream of revenues lasting into the future. The fact that an OLS may find it
worthwhile to "carpet bomb" consumers with free disks obviously only helps the vendor of
browsing software whose product the OLS has chosen to bundle with its proprietary software.
So, while there are other means of distributing browsers, the fact remains that to a firm interested
in browser usage, there simply are no channels that compare in efficiency to OEM pre-
installation and IAP bundling.
148. Knowing that OEMs and IAPs represented the most efficient distribution channels
of browsing software, Microsoft sought to ensure that, to as great an extent as possible, OEMs
and IAPs bundled and promoted Internet Explorer to the exclusion of Navigator.
- Excluding Navigator from the OEM Channel
- Binding Internet Explorer to Windows
- The Status of Web Browsers as Separate Products
149. Consumers determine their software requirements by identifying the
functionalities they desire. While consumers routinely evaluate software products on the basis of
the functionalities the products deliver, they generally lack sufficient information to make
judgements based on the designs and implementations of those products. Accordingly,
consumers generally choose which software products to license, install, and use on the basis of
the products' functionalities, not their designs and implementations.
150. While the meaning of the term "Web browser" is not precise in all respects, there
is a consensus in the software industry as to the functionalities that a Web browser offers a user.
Specifically, a Web browser provides the ability for the end user to select, retrieve, and perceive
resources on the Web. There is also a consensus in the software industry that these
functionalities are distinct from the set of functionalities provided by an operating system.
151. Many consumers desire to separate their choice of a Web browser from their
choice of an operating system. Some consumers, particularly corporate consumers, demand
browsers and operating systems separately because they prefer to standardize on the same
browser across different operating systems. For such consumers, standardizing on the browser of
their choice results in increased productivity and lower training and support costs, and permits
the establishment of consistent security and privacy policies governing Web access.
152. Moreover, many consumers who need an operating system, including a
substantial percentage of corporate consumers, do not want a browser at all. For example, if a
consumer has no desire to browse the Web, he may not want a browser taking up memory on his
hard disk and slowing his system's performance. 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.
153. Because of the separate demand for browsers and operating systems, firms have
found it efficient to supply the products separately. A number of operating system vendors offer
consumers the choice of licensing their operating systems without a browser. Others bundle a
browser with their operating system products but allow OEMs, value-added resellers, and
consumers either to not install it or, if the browser has been pre-installed, to uninstall it. While
Microsoft no longer affords this flexibility (it is the only operating system vendor that does not),
it has always marketed and distributed Internet Explorer separately from Windows in several
channels. These include retail sales, service kits for ISVs, free downloads over the Internet, and
bundling with other products produced both by Microsoft and by third-party ISVs. In order to
compete with Navigator for browser share, as well as to satisfy corporate consumers who want
their diverse PC platforms to present a common browser interface to employees, Microsoft has
also created stand-alone versions of Internet Explorer that run on operating systems other than
32-bit Windows, including the Mac OS and Windows 3.x.
154. In conclusion, the preferences of consumers and the responsive behavior of
software firms demonstrate that Web browsers and operating systems are separate products.
- Microsoft's Actions
155. 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.
As its internal contemporaneous documents and licensing practices reveal, Microsoft decided to
bind Internet Explorer to Windows in order to prevent Navigator from weakening the
applications barrier to entry, rather than for any pro-competitive purpose.
156. Before it decided to blunt the threat that Navigator posed to the applications
barrier to entry, Microsoft did not plan to make it difficult or impossible for OEMs or consumers
to obtain Windows without obtaining Internet Explorer. In fact, the company's internal
correspondence and external communications indicate that, as late as the fall of 1994, Microsoft
was planning to include low-level Internet "plumbing," such as a TCP/IP stack, but not a
browser, with Windows 95.
157. Microsoft subsequently decided to develop a browser to run on Windows 95. As
late as June 1995, however, Microsoft had not decided to bundle that browser with the operating
system. The plan at that point, rather, was to ship the browser in a separate "frosting" package,
for which Microsoft intended to charge. By April or May of that year, however, Microsoft's top
executives had identified Netscape's browser as a potential threat to the applications barrier to
entry. Throughout the spring, more and more key executives came to the conclusion that
Microsoft's best prospect of quashing that threat lay in maximizing the usage share of
Microsoft's browser at Navigator's expense. The executives believed that the most effective way
of carrying out this strategy was to ensure that every copy of Windows 95 carried with it a copy
of Microsoft's browser, then code-named "O'Hare." For example, two days after the June 21,
1995 meeting between Microsoft and Netscape executives, Microsoft's John Ludwig sent an E-
mail to Paul Maritz and the other senior executives involved in Microsoft's browser effort.
"[O]bviously netscape does see us as a client competitor," Ludwig wrote. "[W]e have to work
extra hard to get ohare on the oem disks."
158. Microsoft did manage to bundle Internet Explorer 1.0 with the first version of
Windows 95 licensed to OEMs in July 1995. It also included a term in its OEM licenses that
prohibited the OEMs from modifying or deleting any part of Windows 95, including Internet
Explorer, prior to shipment. The OEMs accepted this restriction despite their interest in meeting
consumer demand for PC operating systems without Internet Explorer. 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. Apart from a few
months in the fall of 1997, when Microsoft provided OEMs with Internet Explorer 4.0 on a
separate disk from Windows 95 and permitted them to ship the latter without the former,
Microsoft has never allowed OEMs to ship Windows 95 to consumers without Internet Explorer.
This policy has guaranteed the presence of Internet Explorer on every new Windows PC system.
159. Microsoft knew that the inability to remove Internet Explorer made OEMs less
disposed to pre-install Navigator onto Windows 95. OEMs bear essentially all of the consumer
support costs for the Windows PC systems they sell. These include the cost of handling
consumer complaints and questions generated by Microsoft's software. Pre-installing more than
one product in a given category, such as word processors or browsers, onto its PC systems can
significantly increase an OEM's support costs, for the redundancy can lead to confusion among
novice users. In addition, pre-installing a second product in a given software category can
increase an OEM's product testing costs. Finally, many OEMs see pre-installing a second
application in a given software category as a questionable use of the scarce and valuable space on
a PC's hard drive.
160. Microsoft's executives believed that the incentives that its contractual restrictions
placed on OEMs would not be sufficient in themselves to reverse the direction of Navigator's
usage share. Consequently, in late 1995 or early 1996, Microsoft set out to bind Internet
Explorer more tightly to Windows 95 as a technical matter. The intent was to make it more
difficult for anyone, including systems administrators and users, to remove Internet Explorer
from Windows 95 and to simultaneously complicate the experience of using Navigator with
Windows 95. As Brad Chase wrote to his superiors near the end of 1995, "We will bind the shell
to the Internet Explorer, so that running any other browser is a jolting experience."
161. Microsoft bound Internet Explorer to Windows 95 by placing code specific to
Web browsing in the same files as code that provided operating system functions. Starting with
the release of Internet Explorer 3.0 and "OEM Service Release 2.0" ("OSR 2") of Windows 95 in
August 1996, Microsoft offered only a version of Windows 95 in which browsing-specific code
shared files with code upon which non-browsing features of the operating system relied.
162. The software code necessary to supply the functionality of a modern application
or operating system can be extremely long and complex. To make that complexity manageable,
developers usually write long programs as a series of individual "routines," each ranging from a
few dozen to a few hundred lines of code, that can be used to perform specific functions. Large
programs are created by "knitting" together many such routines in layers, where the lower layers
are used to provide fundamental functionality relied upon by higher, more focused layers. Some
preliminary aspects of this "knitting" are performed by the software developer. The user who
launches a program, however, is ultimately responsible for causing routines to be loaded into
memory and executed together to produce the program's overall functionality.
163. Routines can be packaged together into files in almost any way the designer
chooses. Routines need not reside in the same file to function together in a seamless fashion.
Also, a developer can move routines into new or different files from one version of a program to
another without changing the functionalities of those routines or the ability to combine them to
provide integrated functionality.
164. Starting with Windows 95 OSR 2, Microsoft placed many of the routines that are
used by Internet Explorer, including browsing-specific routines, into the same files that support
the 32-bit Windows APIs. Microsoft's primary motivation for this action was to ensure that the
deletion of any file containing browsing-specific routines would also delete vital operating
system routines and thus cripple Windows 95. Although some of the code that provided Web
browsing could still be removed, without disabling the operating system, by entering individual
files and selectively deleting routines used only for Web browsing, licensees of Microsoft
software were, and are, contractually prohibited from reverse engineering, decompiling, or
disassembling any software files. Even if this were not so, it is prohibitively difficult for anyone
who does not have access to the original, human-readable source code to change the placement
of routines into files, or otherwise to alter the internal configuration of software files, while still
preserving the software's overall functionality.
165. Although users were not able to remove all of the routines that provided Web
browsing from OSR 2 and successive versions of Windows 95, Microsoft still provided them
with the ability to uninstall Internet Explorer by using the "Add/Remove" panel, which was
accessible from the Windows 95 desktop. The Add/Remove function did not delete all of the
files that contain browsing specific code, nor did it remove browsing-specific code that is used
by other programs. The Add/Remove function did, however, remove the functionalities that
were provided to the user by Internet Explorer, including the means of launching the Web
browser. Accordingly, from the user's perspective, uninstalling Internet Explorer in this way
was equivalent to removing the Internet Explorer program from Windows 95.
166. In late 1996, senior executives within Microsoft, led by James Allchin, began to
argue that Microsoft was not binding Internet Explorer tightly enough to Windows and as such
was missing an opportunity to maximize the usage of Internet Explorer at Navigator's expense.
Allchin first made his case to Paul Maritz in late December 1996. He wrote:
I don't understand how IE is going to win. The current path is simply to copy
everything that Netscape does packaging and product wise. Let's [suppose] IE is
as good as Navigator/Communicator. Who wins? The one with 80% market
share. Maybe being free helps us, but once people are used to a product it is hard
to change them. Consider Office. We are more expensive today and we're still
winning. My conclusion is that we must leverage Windows more. Treating IE as
just an add-on to Windows which is cross-platform [means] losing our biggest
advantage Windows marketshare. We should dedicate a cross group team to
come up with ways to leverage Windows technically more. . . . We should think
about an integrated solution that is our strength.
Allchin followed up with another message to Maritz on January 2, 1997:
You see browser share as job 1. . . . I do not feel we are going to win on
our current path. We are not leveraging Windows from a marketing perspective
and we are trying to copy Netscape and make IE into a platform. We do not use
our strength which is that we have an installed base of Windows and we have a
strong OEM shipment channel for Windows. Pitting browser against browser is
hard since Netscape has 80% marketshare and we have 20%. . . . I am convinced
we have to use Windows this is the one thing they don't have. . . . We have to
be competitive with features, but we need something more Windows
integration.
If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we
are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows together.
This must come from you. . . . Memphis [Microsoft's code-name for Windows
98] must be a simple upgrade, but most importantly it must be killer on OEM
shipments so that Netscape never gets a chance on these systems.
167. Maritz responded to Allchin's second message by agreeing "that we have to make
Windows integration our basic strategy" and that this justified delaying the release of Windows
98 until Internet Explorer 4.0 was ready to be included with that product. Maritz recognized that
the delay would disappoint OEMs for two reasons. First, while OEMs were eager to sell new
hardware technologies to Windows users, they could not do this until Microsoft released
Windows 98, which included software support for the new technologies. Second, OEMs wanted
Windows 98 to be released in time to drive sales of PC systems during the back-to-school and
holiday selling seasons. Nevertheless, Maritz agreed with Allchin's point that synchronizing the
release of Windows 98 with Internet Explorer was "the only thing that makes sense even if
OEMs suffer."
168. Once Maritz had decided that Allchin was right, he needed to instruct the relevant
Microsoft employees to delay the release of Windows 98 long enough so that it could be shipped
with Internet Explorer 4.0 tightly bound to it. When one executive asked on January 7, 1997 for
confirmation that "memphis is going to hold for IE4, even if it puts memphis out of the xmas
oem window," Maritz responded affirmatively and explained,
The major reason for this is . . . to combat Nscp, we have to [ ] position the
browser as "going away" and do deeper integration on Windows. The stronger
way to communicate this is to have a new release' of Windows and make a big
deal out of it. . . . IE integration will be [the] most compelling feature of
Memphis.
Thus, Microsoft delayed the debut of numerous features, including support for new hardware
devices, that Microsoft believed consumers would find beneficial, simply in order to protect the
applications barrier to entry.
169. Allchin and Maritz gained support for their initiative within Microsoft in the early
spring of 1997, when a series of market studies confirmed that binding Internet Explorer tightly
to Windows was the way to get consumers to use Internet Explorer instead of Navigator.
Reporting on one study in late February, Microsoft's Christian Wildfeuer wrote:
The stunning insight is this: To make [users] switch away from Netscape, we need
to make them upgrade to Memphis. . . . It seems clear to me that it will be very
hard to increase browser market share on the merits of IE 4 alone. It will be more
important to leverage the OS asset to make people use IE instead of Navigator.
Microsoft's survey expert, Kumar Mehta, agreed. In March he shared with a colleague his
"feeling, based on all the IE research we have done, [that] it is a mistake to release memphis
without bundling IE with it."
170. Microsoft's technical personnel implemented Allchin's "Windows integration"
strategy in two ways. First, they did not provide users with the ability to uninstall Internet
Explorer from Windows 98. The omission of a browser removal function was particularly
conspicuous given that Windows 98 did give users the ability to uninstall numerous features
other than Internet Explorer features that Microsoft also held out as being integrated into
Windows 98. Microsoft took this action despite specific requests from Gateway that Microsoft
provide a way to uninstall Internet Explorer 4.0 from Windows 98.
171. The second way in which Microsoft's engineers implemented Allchin's strategy
was to make Windows 98 override the user's choice of default browser in certain circumstances.
As shipped to users, Windows 98 has Internet Explorer configured as the default browser. While
Windows 98 does provide the user with the ability to choose a different default browser, it does
not treat this choice as the "default browser" within the ordinary meaning of the term.
Specifically, when a user chooses a browser other than Internet Explorer as the default, Windows
98 nevertheless requires the user to employ Internet Explorer in numerous situations that, from
the user's perspective, are entirely unexpected. As a consequence, users who choose a browser
other than Internet Explorer as their default face considerable uncertainty and confusion in the
ordinary course of using Windows 98.
172. Microsoft's refusal to respect the user's choice of default browser fulfilled Brad
Chase's 1995 promise to make the use of any browser other than Internet Explorer on Windows
"a jolting experience." By increasing the likelihood that using Navigator on Windows 98 would
have unpleasant consequences for users, Microsoft further diminished the inclination of OEMs to
pre-install Navigator onto Windows. The decision to override the user's selection of non-
Microsoft software as the default browser also directly disinclined Windows 98 consumers to use
Navigator as their default browser, and it harmed those Windows 98 consumers who nevertheless
used Navigator. In particular, Microsoft exposed those using Navigator on Windows 98 to
security and privacy risks that are specific to Internet Explorer and to ActiveX controls..
173. Microsoft's actions have inflicted collateral harm on consumers who have no
interest in using a Web browser at all. 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. More generally, Microsoft has
forced Windows 98 users uninterested in browsing to carry software that, while providing them
with no benefits, brings with it all the costs associated with carrying additional software on a
system. These include performance degradation, increased risk of incompatibilities, and the
introduction of bugs. Corporate consumers who need the hardware support and other non-
browsing features not available in earlier versions of Windows, but who do not want Web
browsing at all, are further burdened in that they are denied a simple and effective means of
preventing employees from attempting to browse the Web.
174. Microsoft has harmed even those consumers who desire to use Internet Explorer,
and no other browser, with Windows 98. To the extent that browsing-specific routines have been
commingled with operating system routines to a greater degree than is necessary to provide any
consumer benefit, Microsoft has unjustifiably jeopardized the stability and security of the
operating system. Specifically, it has increased the likelihood that a browser crash will cause the
entire system to crash and made it easier for malicious viruses that penetrate the system viaInternet Explorer to infect non-browsing parts of the system.
- Lack of Justification
175. No technical reason can explain Microsoft's refusal to license Windows 95
without Internet Explorer 1.0 and 2.0. The version of Internet Explorer (1.0) that Microsoft
included with the original OEM version of Windows 95 was a separable, executable program file
supplied on a separate disk. Web browsing thus could be installed or removed without affecting
the rest of Windows 95's functionality in any way. The same was true of Internet Explorer 2.0.
Microsoft, moreover, created an easy way to remove Internet Explorer 1.0 and 2.0 from
Windows 95 after they had been installed, via the "Add/Remove" panel. This demonstrates the
absence of any technical reason for Microsoft's refusal to supply Windows 95 without Internet
Explorer 1.0 and 2.0.
176. Similarly, there is no technical justification for Microsoft's refusal to license
Windows 95 to OEMs with Internet Explorer 3.0 or 4.0 uninstalled, or for its refusal to permit
OEMs to uninstall Internet Explorer 3.0 or 4.0. Microsoft's decision to provide users with an
"uninstall" procedure for Internet Explorer 3.0 and 4.0 and its decision to promote Internet
Explorer on the basis of that feature demonstrate that there was no technical or quality-related
reason for refusing to permit OEMs to use this same feature. Microsoft would not have
permitted users to uninstall Internet Explorer, nor would consumers have demanded such an
option, if the process would have fragmented or degraded the other functionality of the operating
system.
177. As with Windows 95, there is no technical justification for Microsoft's refusal to
meet consumer demand for a browserless version of Windows 98. Microsoft could easily supply
a version of Windows 98 that does not provide the ability to browse the Web, and to which users
could add the browser of their choice. Indicative of this is the fact that it remains possible to
remove Web browsing functionality from Windows 98 without adversely affecting non-Web
browsing features of Windows 98 or the functionality of applications running on the operating
system. 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.
178. In his direct testimony, Felten provides a full technical description of what his
prototype removal program does. This description includes a list of the twenty-one methods of
initiating Web browsing in Windows 98 that were known to Felten when he developed his
program. When the revised version of Felten's program is run on a computer with Windows 98
and no other software installed, Web browsing is not initiated in response to any of these
methods.
179. James Allchin tried to show at trial, by way of a videotaped demonstration, that
the functionality of Internet Explorer could still be enabled, even after the prototype removal
program had been run, by manually adding a new entry to the Windows Registry database.
During Felten's rebuttal testimony, one of Microsoft's attorneys directed Felten to perform a
second demonstration intended to show that the functionality of Internet Explorer could still be
enabled, even after the prototype removal program had been run, by hitting the "control" and "N"
keys simultaneously after running the Windows Update feature. Neither of these methods of
initiating Web browsing was among the twenty-one documented methods known to Felten when
he developed his program.
Furthermore, the latter demonstration was hardly a reliable test of
Felten's program, because the Encompass shell browser and other applications had been installed
on the Windows 98 PC system used in the demonstration. At most, the two demonstrations
indicate that Felten did not know all of the methods of initiating Web browsing in Windows 98
when he developed his program, and that he did not include steps in his program to prevent the
invocation of Internet Explorer's functionality in response to methods of which he was unaware.
Microsoft has special knowledge of its own products, and it alone chooses which functionalities
in its products are to be documented and which are to be left undocumented. Felten was aware of
this fact, and he himself noted that his own documentation of initiation methods was not
exhaustive.
180. Allchin also attempted to show that Felten's program causes performance
degradations in Windows 98, as well as malfunctions in certain Windows 98 applications and the
Windows Update feature of Windows 98. Those demonstrations, however, were performed on a
PC on which several third-party software programs had been installed in addition to Windows
98, and which had been connected to the Internet via a dial-up connection. Felten's program was
not intended to be definitive and had not been verified under preconditions other than those for
which it was designed. Thus, there was no reason to expect that his program would operate
flawlessly during Allchin's demonstrations, and nothing can be inferred from any failure to do
so.
181. In fact, the revised version of Felten's program does not degrade the performance
or stability of Windows 98 in any way. To the contrary, according to several standard programs
used by Microsoft to measure system performance, the removal of Internet Explorer by the
prototype program slightly improves the overall speed of Windows 98.
182. Given Microsoft's special knowledge of its own products, the company is readily
able to produce an improved implementation of the concept illustrated by Felten's prototype
removal program. In particular, Microsoft can easily identify browsing-specific code that could
be removed from shared files, thereby reducing the operating system's memory and hard disk
requirements and obtaining performance improvements even beyond those achieved by Felten.
183. Microsoft contends that Felten's prototype removal program does not remove
Internet Explorer's Web browsing functionalities, but rather "hides" those functionalities from
the perspective of the user. In support of that contention, Microsoft points out that Felten's
program removes only a small fraction of the code in Windows 98, so that the hard drive still
contains almost all of the code that had been executed in the course of providing Internet
Explorer's Web browsing functionalities. Some of that code is left on the hard drive because it
also supports Windows 98's operating system functionalities. Microsoft did not offer any
analytical basis, however, for distinguishing this sharing of code from the code sharing that
exists between all Windows applications and the operating system functionalities in Windows
98.
184. While Microsoft's observation suggests that Felten's program does not greatly
reduce Windows 98's "footprint" on the hard disk, that point is irrelevant to the question of
whether Felten's program removes Internet Explorer's functionalities from Windows 98. This is
because the functionalities of a software product are not provided by the mere presence of code
on a computer's hard drive. For software code to provide any functionalities at all the code must
be loaded into the computer's dynamic memory and executed. To uninstall a software program
or to remove a set of functionalities from a software program, it is not necessary to delete all of
the software code that is executed in the course of providing those functionalities. It is sufficient
to delete and/or modify enough of the program so as to prevent the code in question from being
executed.
185. This deletion and modification is precisely what Felten's program does to
Windows 98. After Felten's program has been run, the software code that formerly had been
executed in the course of providing Web browsing functionalities is no longer executed. Web
browsing functionalities are not merely "hidden" from the user. To the contrary, Felten's
program deletes and modifies enough of Windows 98 so as to prevent the necessary code from
being executed altogether. Since code that is not to be executed does not need to be loaded into
memory, Felten's program is able to reduce the memory allocated to Windows 98 by
approximately twenty percent.
186. As an abstract and general proposition, many if not most consumers can be
said to benefit from Microsoft's provision of Web browsing functionality with its Windows
operating system at no additional charge. No consumer benefit can be ascribed, however, to
Microsoft's refusal to offer a version of Windows 95 or Windows 98 without Internet Explorer,
or to Microsoft's refusal to provide a method for uninstalling Internet Explorer from Windows
98. In particular, Microsoft's decision to force users to take the browser in order to get the non-
Web browsing features of Windows 98, including support for new Internet protocols and data
formats is, as Allchin put it, simply a choice about "distribution."
187. As Felten's program demonstrated, it is feasible for Microsoft to supply a version
of Windows 98 that does not provide the ability to browse the Web, to which users could add a
browser of their choice. Microsoft could then readily offer "integrated" Internet Explorer Web
browsing functionality as well, either as an option that could be selected by the end user or the
OEM during the Windows 98 setup procedure, or as a "service pack upgrade."
188. Unlike a "pocket part" supplement to a book, a software upgrade need not consist
only of new material. A service pack upgrade may install a combination of new software files
and/or replacements for existing software files. The use of such service packs to distribute new
functionality is a standard feature of Windows applications generally. Microsoft could offer
"integrated" Internet Explorer Web browsing functionality as a service pack upgrade that would
locate the relevant software and replace it with the current Windows 98 software. In this way,
any consumer who wished to do so could easily acquire all of the functionality, features, and
performance of the current version of Windows 98 by obtaining the browserless operating
system package and the service pack upgrade and then installing them together.
189. Microsoft contends that a service pack must necessarily be deemed part of the
operating system when it replaces and adds a large number of core operating system files in the
process of upgrading the operating system to a higher level of functionality. This contention is
false. Both Microsoft Word, an application program, and Norton Utilities, a suite of utility and
application programs, replace and add files to Windows without thereby becoming part of the
operating system.
190. Microsoft's actual use of a service pack upgrade to offer integrated Internet
Explorer Web browsing functionality (Internet Explorer 4.0) separately from the Windows 95
operating system illustrates the feasibility of this approach. In fact, it produces results
remarkably similar to those that could be achieved by offering integrated Internet Explorer Web
browsing functionality as a separate service pack upgrade to a browserless Windows 98
operating system. When installed together by the end user, the combined software provides
nearly all of the features that Microsoft attributes to the "integrated" design of Windows 98. Of
the missing features, all but WebTV for Windows can be obtained by thereafter installing a
separately obtained copy of Internet Explorer 5.0. Microsoft has presented no evidence that the
WebTV functionality could not easily be included in the stand-alone version of Internet Explorer
5.0.
191. Therefore, Microsoft could offer consumers all the benefits of the current
Windows 98 package by distributing the products separately and allowing OEMs or consumers
themselves to combine the products if they wished. In fact, operating system vendors other than
Microsoft currently succeed in offering "integrated" features similar to those that Microsoft
advertises in Windows 98 while still permitting the removal of the browser from the operating
system. If consumers genuinely prefer a version of Windows bundled with Internet Explorer,
they do not have to be forced to take it; they can choose it in the market.
192. Windows 98 offers some benefits unrelated to browsing that a consumer cannot
obtain by combining Internet Explorer with Windows 95. For example, Windows 98 includes
support for new hardware technologies and data formats that consumers may desire. While
nevertheless preferring to do without Web browsing, Microsoft has forced Windows users who
do not want Internet Explorer to nevertheless license, install, and use Internet Explorer to obtain
the unrelated benefits. Although some consumers might be inclined to go without Windows 98's
new non-browsing features in order to avoid Internet Explorer, OEMs are unlikely to facilitate
that choice, because they want consumers to use an operating system that supports the new
hardware technologies they seek to sell.
193. Microsoft's argument that binding the browser to the operating system is
reasonably necessary to preserve the "integrity" of the Windows platform is likewise specious.
First, concern with the integrity of the platform cannot explain Microsoft's original decision to
bind Internet Explorer to Windows 95, because Internet Explorer 1.0 and 2.0 did not contain
APIs. Second, concern with the integrity of the platform cannot explain Microsoft's refusal to
offer OEMs the option of uninstalling Internet Explorer from Windows 95 and Windows 98
because APIs, like all other shared files, are left on the system when Internet Explorer in
uninstalled.
Third, Microsoft's contention that offering OEMs the choice of whether or not to
install certain browser-related APIs would fragment the Windows platform is unpersuasive
because OEMs operate in a competitive market and thus have ample incentive to include APIs
(including non-Microsoft APIs) required by the applications that their customers demand.
Fourth, even if there were some potential benefit associated with the forced licensing of a single
set of APIs to all OEMs, such justification could not apply in this case, because Microsoft itself
precipitates fragmentation of its platform by continually updating various portions of the
Windows installed base with new APIs. ISVs have adapted to this reality by redistributing
needed APIs with their applications in order to ensure that the necessary APIs are present when
the programs are launched. To the same end, Microsoft makes the APIs it ships with Internet
Explorer available to third-party developers for distribution with their own products. Moreover,
Microsoft itself bundles APIs including those distributed with Internet Explorer with a
number of the applications that it distributes separately from Windows.
194. Microsoft also contends that by providing "best of breed" implementations of
various functionalities, a vendor of a popular operating system can benefit consumers and
improve the efficiency of the software market generally, because the resulting standardization
allows ISVs to concentrate their efforts on developing complementary technologies for the
industry leaders. Microsoft's refusal to offer a version of Windows 98 in which its Web browser
is either absent or removable, however, had no such purpose. Rather, it had the purpose and
effect of quashing innovation that exhibited the potential to facilitate the emergence of
competition in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems.
195. Furthermore, there is only equivocal support for the proposition that Microsoft
will ultimately prove to be the source of a "best of breed" Web browser. In fact, there is
considerable evidence to the contrary. Both Microsoft and the plaintiffs have used product
evaluations to support their claims about the relationship between innovations in Web browser
technology and consumer choices regarding the use of Web browsers. These product evaluations
generally compare Internet Explorer with Navigator by identifying the beneficial and detrimental
features of each. Because the evaluations disagree as to which features are most important, there
is no consensus as to which is the best browser overall. When read together, the evaluations also
do not identify any existing Web browser as being "best of breed" in the sense of being at least
as good as all others in all significant respects. Moreover, there is nothing in the evaluations, nor
anywhere else in the evidence, to suggest that further innovation efforts by vendors other than
Microsoft in the field of Web browser technology are no longer necessary or desirable. To the
contrary, many of the product reviews suggest further innovations in both Microsoft and non-
Microsoft Web browsers that would benefit consumers.
196. Despite differences in emphasis, the product evaluations do generally concur as to
which browser features are beneficial, which browser features are detrimental, and why. Thus,
the evaluations provide extensive detailed information about consumer preferences that can be
used to predict likely directions in the evolution of Web browser technology.
197. First, the evaluations suggest that, although most Web publishers charge nothing
for access to their sites, consumers recognize that there are search and communication costs
associated with Web transactions. Accordingly, consumers prefer, and benefit from, innovations
in Web browser technology that reduce these costs. Second, consumers recognize that the Web
contains a vast and growing range of digital information resources, many of which contain
viruses that are capable of causing devastating and irreversible harm to their security and privacy
interests. Accordingly, consumers prefer, and benefit from, innovations in Web browser
technology that help them identify and avoid harmful Web resources. Third, consumers
recognize that they frequently lack adequate information to enable them to assess accurately the
costs, risks, and benefits of performing a particular Web transaction. Accordingly, consumers
prefer, and benefit from, innovations in Web browser technology that help them assess these
costs, risks, and benefits prior to performing the transaction.
198. The reduction of search and communication costs, the identification and
avoidance of harmful Web resources, and the provision of more accurate information as to the
costs, risks, and benefits of performing Web transactions are just three of the many possible areas
of innovation in the field of Web browser technology. Far from demonstrating that Internet
Explorer is currently a "best of breed" Web browser, the evidence reveals Microsoft's awareness
of the need for continuous improvement of its products. For example, Microsoft frequently
releases "patches" to address security and privacy vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer as they are
discovered. In sum, there is no indication that Microsoft is destined to provide a "best of breed"
Web browser that makes continuing, competitively driven innovations unproductive.
- The Market for Web Browsing Functionality
199. Since the World Wide Web was introduced to the public in 1991, the resources
available on the Web have multiplied at a near-exponential rate. The Internet is becoming a true
mass medium. Every day Web resources are published, combined, modified, moved, and
deleted. Millions of individuals and organizations have published Web sites, and Web site
addresses are pervasive in advertising, promotion, and corporate identification.
200. The economics of the Internet, along with the flexible structure of Web pages,
have made the Web the leading trajectory for the ongoing convergence of mass communications
media. Many television and radio stations make some or all of their transmissions available on
the Web in the form of static multimedia files or streaming media. Many newspapers,
magazines, books, journals, public documents, and software programs are also published on the
Web. Multimedia files on the Web have emerged as viable substitutes for many pre-recorded
audio and video entertainment products. Web-based E-mail, discussion lists, news groups, "chat
rooms," paging, instant messaging, and telephony are all in common use. In addition to
subsuming all other digital media, the Web also offers popular interactive and collaborative
modes of communication that are not available through other media.
201. The use of Web browsers to conduct Web transactions has grown at pace with the
growth of the Web, reflecting the immense value that subsists in the digital information resources
that have become available on the Web. Consumer demand for software functionality that
facilitates Web transactions, and the response by browser vendors to that demand, creates a
market for Web browsing functionality. Although Web browsers are now generally not licensed
at a positive price, all Web transactions impose significant costs on consumers, and all browser
vendors, including Microsoft, have significant economic interests in maximizing usage of the
browsing functionality they control.
- Preventing OEMs from Removing the Ready Means of
Accessing Internet Explorer and from Promoting Navigator in
the Boot Sequence
202. Since the release of Internet Explorer 1.0 in July 1995, Microsoft has distributed
every version of Windows with Internet Explorer included. Consequently, no OEM has ever
(with the exception of a few months in late 1997) been able to license a copy of Windows 95 or
Windows 98 that has not come with Internet Explorer. Refusing to offer OEMs a browserless
(and appropriately discounted) version of Windows forces OEMs to take (and pay for) Internet
Explorer, but it does not prevent a determined OEM from nevertheless offering its consumers a
different Web browser. Even Microsoft's additional refusal to allow OEMs to uninstall (without
completely removing) Internet Explorer from Windows does not completely foreclose a
resourceful OEM from offering consumers another browser. For example, an OEM with
sufficient technical expertise (which all the larger OEMs certainly possess) could offer its
customers a choice of browsers while still minimizing user confusion if the OEM were left free
to configure its systems to present this choice the first time a user turned on a new PC system. If
the user chose Navigator, the system would automatically remove the most prominent means of
accessing Internet Explorer from Windows (without actually uninstalling, i.e., removing all
means of accessing, Internet Explorer) before the desktop screen appeared for the first time.
203. If OEMs removed the most visible means of invoking Internet Explorer, and pre-
installed Navigator with facile methods of access, Microsoft's purpose in forcing OEMs to take
Internet Explorer capturing browser usage share from Netscape would be subverted. The
same would be true if OEMs simply configured their machines to promote Navigator before
Windows had a chance to promote Internet Explorer, Decision-makers at Microsoft believed that
as Internet Explorer caught up with Navigator in quality, OEMs would ultimately conclude that
the costs of pre-installing and promoting Navigator, and removing easy access to Internet
Explorer, outweighed the benefits. Still, those decision-makers did not believe that Microsoft
could afford to wait for the several large OEMs that represented virtually all Windows PCs
shipped to come to this desired conclusion on their own. Therefore, in order to bring the
behavior of OEMs into line with its strategic goals quickly, Microsoft threatened to terminate the
Windows license of any OEM that removed Microsoft's chosen icons and program entries from
the Windows desktop or the "Start" menu. It threatened similar punishment for OEMs who
added programs that promoted third-party software to the Windows "boot" sequence. These
inhibitions soured Microsoft's relations with OEMs and stymied innovation that might have
made Windows PC systems more satisfying to users. Microsoft would not have paid this price
had it not been convinced that its actions were necessary to ostracize Navigator from the vital
OEM distribution channel.
204. Although Microsoft's original Windows 95 licenses withheld from OEMs
permission to implement any modifications to the Windows product not expressly authorized by
Microsoft's "OEM Pre-Installation Kit," or "OPK," it had always been Microsoft's practice to
grant certain OEMs requesting it some latitude to make modifications not specified in the OPK.
But when OEMs began, in the summer of 1995, to request permission to remove the Internet
Explorer icon from the Windows desktop prior to shipping their PCs, Microsoft consistently and
steadfastly refused. As Compaq learned in the first half of 1996, Microsoft was prepared to
enforce this prohibition against even its closest OEM allies.
205. In August 1995, Compaq entered into a "Promotion and Distribution Agreement"
with AOL whereby Compaq agreed to "position AOL Services above all other Online Services
within the user interface of its Products." An addendum to the agreement provided that Compaq
would place an AOL icon and no OLS icons not controlled by AOL on the desktop of its
PCs. Pursuant to its obligations, Compaq began in late 1995 or early 1996 to ship its Presario
PCs with the MSN icon removed and the AOL icon added to the Windows desktop. At the same
time, Compaq removed the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop of its Presarios and replaced
it with a single icon representing both the Spry ISP and the browser product that Spry bundled,
i.e., Navigator. Compaq added this icon in part because it recognized Navigator to be the most
popular browser product with its consumers; it removed the Internet Explorer icon because it did
not want its PCs desktops to confuse novice users with a clutter of Internet-related icons.
206. When Microsoft learned of Compaq's plans for the Presario, it informed Compaq
that it considered the removal of the MSN and Internet Explorer icons to be a violation of the
OPK process by which Compaq had previously agreed to abide. For its part, AOL informed
Compaq that it viewed the addition of an icon for Spry as a violation of their 1995 agreement.
AOL did not object to the presence of a Navigator icon; what concerned AOL was the fact that
clicking on this icon brought the user to the Spry ISP. Despite the protests from Microsoft and
AOL, Compaq refused to reconfigure the Presario desktop. Finally, after months of unsuccessful
importunity, Microsoft sent Compaq a letter on May 31, 1996, stating its intention to terminate
Compaq's license for Windows 95 if Compaq did not restore the MSN and Internet Explorer
icons to their original positions. Compaq's executives opined that their firm could not continue
in business for long without a license for Windows, so in June Compaq restored the MSN and IE
icons to the Presario desktop.
207. Microsoft did not further condition its withdrawal of the termination notice on the
removal of the AOL and Navigator icons; AOL, however, did protest both the continued
presence of a Spry icon and the reappearance of the MSN icon. After AOL sent Compaq a
formal notice of its intent to terminate the Promotion and Distribution Agreement in September
1996, Compaq removed the Spry/Navigator icon. For reasons discussed below, Compaq did not
then replace the Spry/Navigator icon with an icon solely for Navigator.
208. In its confrontation with Compaq, Microsoft demonstrated that it was prepared to
go to the brink of losing all Windows sales through its highest-volume OEM partner in order to
enforce its prohibition against removing Microsoft's Internet-related icons from the Windows
desktop.
209. If the only prohibition had been against removing Microsoft icons and program
entries, OEMs partial to Navigator still would have been able to recruit users to Navigator by
configuring their PCs to promote it before the Windows desktop first presented itself. This is
true because the average user, having chosen a browser product, is indisposed to undergo the
trouble of switching to a different one. With the release of Windows 95, some of the high-
volume OEMs began to customize the Windows boot sequence so that, the first time users turned
on their new PCs, certain OEM-designed tutorials and registration programs, as well as "splash"
screens that simply displayed the OEM's brand, would run before the users were presented with
the Windows desktop.
210. Promoting non-Microsoft software and services was not the only, or even the
primary, purpose of the OEM introductory programs. The primary purpose, rather, was to make
the experience of setting up and learning to use a new PC system easier and less confusing for
users, especially novices. By doing so, the OEMs believed, they would increase the value of
their systems and minimize both product returns and costly support calls. Since just three calls
from a consumer can erase the entire profit that an OEM earned selling a PC system to that
consumer, OEMs have an acute interest in making their systems self-explanatory and simple to
use. A secondary purpose motivating OEMs to insert programs into the boot sequence was to
differentiate their products from those of their competitors. Finally, OEMs perceived an
opportunity to collect bounties from IAPs and ISVs in exchange for the promotion of their
services and software in the boot sequence. Thus, among the programs that many OEMs inserted
into the boot sequence were Internet sign-up procedures that encouraged users to choose from a
list of IAPs assembled by the OEM. In many cases, a consumer signing up for an IAP through
an OEM program would automatically become a user of whichever browser that IAP bundled
with its proprietary software. In other cases, the IAP would present the user with a choice of
browsers in the course of collecting from the user the information necessary to start a
subscription.
211. In addition to tutorials, sign-up programs, and splash screens, a few large OEMs
developed programs that ran automatically at the conclusion of a new PC system's first boot
sequence. These programs replaced the Windows desktop either with a user interface designed
by the OEM or with Navigator's user interface. The OEMs that implemented automatically
loading alternative user interfaces did so out of the belief that many users, particularly novice
ones, would find the alternate interfaces less complicated and confusing than the Windows
desktop.
212. When Gates became aware of what the OEMs were doing, he expressed concern
to Kempin, the Microsoft executive in charge of OEM sales. On January 6, 1996, Gates wrote to
Kempin: "Winning Internet browser share is a very very important goal for us. Apparently a lot
of OEMs are bundling non-Microsoft browsers and coming up with offerings together with
Internet Service providers that get displayed on their machines in a FAR more prominent way
than MSN or our Internet browser." Less than three weeks later, Kempin delivered his semi-
annual report on OEM sales to his superiors. In the report, he identified "Control over start-up
screens, MSN and IE placement" as one interest that Microsoft had neglected over the previous
six months. The ongoing imbroglio with Compaq was prominent in Kempin's thinking, but he
also recognized that establishing control over the boot process was necessary to ensure
preferential positioning for MSN and Internet Explorer.
213. In an effort to thwart the practice of OEM customization, Microsoft began, in the
spring of 1996, to force OEMs to accept a series of restrictions on their ability to reconfigure the
Windows 95 desktop and boot sequence. There were five such restrictions, which were
manifested either as amendments to existing Windows 95 licenses or as terms in new Windows
98 licenses. First, Microsoft formalized the prohibition against removing any icons, folders, or
"Start" menu entries that Microsoft itself had placed on the Windows desktop. Second,
Microsoft prohibited OEMs from modifying the initial Windows boot sequence. Third,
Microsoft prohibited OEMs from installing programs, including alternatives to the Windows
desktop user interface, which would launch automatically upon completion of the initial
Windows boot sequence. Fourth, Microsoft prohibited OEMs from adding icons or folders to the
Windows desktop that were not similar in size and shape to icons supplied by Microsoft.
Finally, when Microsoft later released the Active Desktop as part of Internet Explorer 4.0, it
added the restriction that OEMs were not to use that feature to display third-party brands.
214. The several OEMs that in the aggregate represented over ninety percent of Intel-
compatible PC sales believed that the new restrictions would make their PC systems more
difficult and more confusing to use, and thus less acceptable to consumers. They also anticipated
that the restrictions would increase product returns and support costs and generally lower the
value of their machines. Those OEMs that had already spent millions of dollars developing and
implementing tutorial and registration programs and/or automatically-loading graphical
interfaces in the Windows boot sequence lamented that their investment would, as a result of
Microsoft's policy, be largely wasted. Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM communicated their
opposition forcefully and urged Microsoft to lift the restrictions. Emblematic of the reaction
among large OEMs was a letter that the manager of research and development at Hewlett-
Packard sent to Microsoft in March 1997. He wrote:
Microsoft's mandated removal of all OEM boot-sequence and auto-start
programs for OEM licensed systems has resulted in significant and costly
problems for the HP-Pavilion line of retail PC's.
Our data (as of 3/10/97) shows a 10% increase in W[indows]95 calls as a
% of our total customer support calls . . . .
Our registration rate has also dropped from the mid-80% range to the low
60% range.
There is also subjective data from several channel partners that our system
return rate has increased from the lowest of any OEM (even lower than Apple) to
a level comparable to the other Microsoft OEM PC vendors. This is a major
concern in that we are taking a step backward in meeting customer satisfaction
needs.
These three pieces of data confirm that we have been damaged by the
edicts that [ ] Microsoft issued last fall. . . .
From the consumer perspective, we are hurting our industry and our
customers. PC's can be frightening and quirky pieces of technology into which
they invest a large sum of their money. It is vitally important that the PC
suppliers dramatically improve the consumer buying experience, out of box
experience as well as the longer term product usability and reliability. The
channel feedback as well as our own data shows that we are going in the wrong
direction. This causes consumer dissatisfaction in complex telephone support
process, needless in-home repair visits and ultimately in product returns. Many
times the cause is user misunderstanding of a product that presents too much
complexity to the common user. . . .
Our Customers hold HP accountable for their dissatisfaction with our
products. We bear [ ] the cost of returns of our products. We are responsible for
the cost of technical support of our customers, including the 33% of calls we get
related to the lack of quality or confusion generated by your product. And finally
we are responsible for our success or failure in the retail PC market.
We must have more ability to decide how our system is presented to our
end users.
If we had a choice of another supplier, based on your actions in this area, I
assure you [that you] would not be our supplier of choice.
I strongly urge you to have your executives review these decisions and to
change this unacceptable policy.
215. Even in the face of such strident opposition from its OEM customers, Microsoft
refused to relent on the bulk of its restrictions. It did, however, grant Hewlett-Packard and other
OEMs discounts off the royalty price of Windows as compensation for the work required to
bring their respective alternative user interfaces into compliance with Microsoft's requirements.
Despite the high costs that Microsoft's demands imposed on them, the OEMs obeyed the
restrictions because they perceived no alternative to licensing Windows for pre-installation on
their PCs. Still, the restrictions lowered the value that OEMs attached to Windows by the
amount of the costs that the restrictions imposed on them. Furthermore, Microsoft's
intransigence damaged the goodwill between it and several of the highest-volume OEMs.
216. Microsoft was willing to sacrifice some goodwill and some of the value that
OEMs attached to Windows in order to exclude Netscape from the crucial OEM distribution
channel. Microsoft's restrictions succeeded in raising the costs to OEMs of pre-installing and
promoting Navigator. These increased costs, in turn, were in some cases significant enough to
deter OEMs from pre-installing Navigator altogether. In other cases, as is discussed in the next
section, OEMs decided not to pre-install Navigator after Microsoft brought still more pressure to
bear.
217. Microsoft's license agreements have never prohibited OEMs from pre-installing
programs, including Navigator, on their PCs and placing icons and entries for those programs on
the Windows desktop and in the "Start" menu. The icons and entries that Microsoft itself places
on the desktop and in the "Start" menu have always left room for OEMs to insert more icons and
program entries of their own choosing. In fact, Microsoft leaves enough space for an OEM to
add more than forty icons to the Windows desktop. Still, the availability of space for added
icons did not make including a Navigator icon inexpensive for OEMs. Given the unavoidable
presence of the Internet Explorer and MSN icons, adding a Navigator icon would increase the
amount of Internet-related clutter on the desktop. This would lead to confusion among novice
users, which would in turn increase the incidence of support calls and product returns. Microsoft
made this very point clear to OEMs in its attempts to persuade them not to pre-install Navigator
on their PCs. Furthermore, OEMs recognized that including multiple Navigator icons in an
attempt to draw users' attention away from Internet Explorer would only increase the amount of
clutter on the desktop, thus adding to user confusion. Although the Windows 98 OEM license
does not forbid the OEM to set Navigator as the default browsing software, doing so would fail
to forestall user confusion since, as the Court found in the previous section, Windows 98
launches Internet Explorer in certain situations even if Navigator is set as the default.
218. The restrictions on modifying the Windows boot sequence, including the
prohibition against automatically loading alternate user interfaces, deprived OEMs of the
principal devices by which to lure users to Navigator over the high-profile presence of Internet
Explorer in the Windows user interface. An OEM remained free to place an icon on the desktop
that a user could click to invoke an alternate user interface. Plus, once invoked, the interface
could be configured to load automatically the next time the PC was turned on. This mode of
presentation proved to be much less effective than the one Microsoft foreclosed, however, for
studies showed that users tended not to trouble with selecting an alternate user interface; they
were content to use the interface that loaded automatically the first time they turned on their PCs.
Furthermore, while Microsoft's restrictions never extended to the interval between the time when
the PC was turned on and the time when Windows began loading from the hard drive into RAM,
developing anything more complicated than a simple splash screen to run in that period would
have involved, at a minimum, the writing of a DOS utility and, at the maximum, the pre-
installation of a second operating system. Such measures were simply not worth the cost.
Finally, although the Windows 98 license does not prohibit an OEM from including on the
keyboard of its PCs a button that takes users directly to an OEM-maintained site containing
promotion for Navigator, such a configuration is extremely costly for an OEM to implement, and
it represents a less effective form of promotion than automatically advertising Navigator in the
initial boot process.
219. In the spring of 1998, Microsoft began gradually to moderate certain of the
restrictions described above. The first sign of relaxation came when Microsoft permitted some
fifty OEMs to include ISPs of their choice in Microsoft's Internet Connection Wizard. Then, in
late May and early June 1998, Microsoft informed seven of the highest-volume OEMs that it was
granting them the privilege of inserting their own registration and Internet sign-up programs into
the initial Windows 98 boot sequence. If the user selected an IAP using the OEM program,
Microsoft's Internet Connection Wizard would not run in the boot sequence. Microsoft
subsequently extended these same privileges to several other OEMs, upon their request.
220. It is important to note that Microsoft's tractability emerged only after the
restrictions had been in place for over a year, and only after Microsoft had managed to secure
favorable promotion for Internet Explorer through the most important IAPs. 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. In a single exception, Microsoft granted Gateway's request that it be permitted to
give consumers who used Gateway's sign-up process and selected Gateway.net as their ISP an
opportunity to choose Navigator as their browser. Microsoft granted this permission orally, and
it did not extend similar privileges to any other OEMs.
221. Microsoft asserts that the restrictions it places on the ability of OEMs to modify
the Windows desktop and boot sequence are merely intended to prevent OEMs from
compromising the quality and consistency of Windows after the code leaves Microsoft's physical
control, but before PC consumers first begin to experience the product. In truth, however, the
OEM modifications that Microsoft prohibits would not compromise the quality or consistency of
Windows any more than the modifications that Microsoft currently permits. Furthermore, to the
extent that certain OEM modifications did threaten to impair the quality and consistency of
Windows, Microsoft's response has been more restrictive than necessary to abate the threat.
Microsoft would not have imposed prohibitions that burdened OEMs and consumers with
substantial costs, lowered the value of Windows, and harmed the company's relations with major
OEMs had it not felt that the measures were necessary to maximize Internet Explorer's share of
browser usage at Navigator's expense.
222. Microsoft asserts that it restricts the freedom of OEMs to remove icons, folders,
or "Start" menu entries that Microsoft places on the Windows desktop in order to ensure that
consumers will enjoy ready access to the features that Microsoft's advertising has led them to
expect. The Windows trademark would be blemished, Microsoft argues, if consumers could not
easily find the features that impelled them to purchase a Windows-equipped PC. At the same
time that it has put forward this justification, however, Microsoft has permitted OEMs to de-
activate Microsoft's Active Desktop and its associated "channels" prior to shipment. More
significant is the fact that Microsoft's license agreements require OEMs to bear product support
costs. So if a consumer has difficulty locating a feature that he wants to use, he will call a
customer service representative employed by the OEM that manufactured his PC. Since only a
few calls erase the profit earned from selling a PC system, OEMs are loathe to do anything that
will lead to consumer questions and complaints.
Therefore, if market research indicates that consumers want and expect to see a certain icon on the Windows desktop, OEMs will not remove it. Since OEMs share Microsoft's interest in ensuring that consumers can easily find the
features they want on their Windows PC systems, Microsoft would not have prohibited OEMs
from removing icons, folders, or "Start" menu entries if its only concern had been consumer
satisfaction. In fact, by forbidding OEMs to remove the most obvious means of invoking
Internet Explorer, Microsoft diminished the value of Windows PC systems to those corporate
customers, for example, who did not intend for their employees to browse the Web and did not
want a browser taking up hardware resources. Incidentally, there is no merit in the hypothesis
that OEMs might cause problems in the functioning of the rest of Windows by removing Internet
Explorer's desktop icon and program entry, because Microsoft still allows users to do exactly
that.
223. According to Microsoft, its restrictions on the ability of OEMs to insert programs
into the initial Windows boot sequence are meant to ensure that all Windows users experience
the product the way Microsoft intended it the first time they turn on their PC systems; after all,
there would be little incentive to develop a high-quality operating-system product if OEMs were
free to alter it for the worse before handing it over to consumers. This argument might be
availing were it not for the fact that Microsoft currently allows several of the largest-volume
OEMs to make major modifications to the initial Windows 98 boot sequence. Microsoft permits
each of these OEMs to configure its own splash screens, tutorials, registration wizards, Internet
sign-up wizards, and utilities so that they run automatically when the consumer first turns on a
new PC system. Either Microsoft stopped caring about the consistency of the Windows
experience in 1998, when it tempered its restrictions on modifications to the boot sequence, or
preserving consistency was never Microsoft's true motivation for imposing those restrictions in
the first place. With all the variety that Microsoft now tolerates in the boot sequence, including
the promotion of OEM-branded browser shells, it is difficult to comprehend how allowing OEMs
to promote Navigator in their tutorials and Internet sign-up programs would further compromise
Microsoft's purported interest in consistency.
224. Although Microsoft has tolerated a variety of OEM modifications to the Windows
boot sequence, it has never acquiesced to an alternate user interface that automatically obscures
the Windows desktop after the PC system has finished booting for the first time. In demanding
the removal of such automatically loading user interfaces, Microsoft has postulated that
consumers who purchase Windows PCs expect to see the Windows desktop when their PC
systems finish booting for the first time. If consumers instead see a different user interface, they
will be confused and disappointed. What is more, Microsoft asserts, OEM shells have tended to
be of lower quality than Windows. One OEM's version allegedly even disabled the ability of a
Windows user to invoke functionality by clicking the right button of his mouse.
225. The alternate shells that OEMs have developed may or may not be of lower
quality than Windows. One thing is clear, however: If an OEM develops a shell that users do
not like as much as Windows, and if the OEM causes that shell to load as the default user
interface the first time its PCs are turned on, consumer wrath will fall first upon the OEM, and
demand for that OEM's PC systems will decline commensurately with the resulting user
dissatisfaction. The market for Intel-compatible PCs is, by all accounts, a competitive one.
Consequently, any OEM that tries to force an unwanted, low-quality shell on consumers will do
so at its own peril. Had Microsoft's sole concern been consumer satisfaction, it would have
relied more on the power of the market and less on its own market power to prevent OEMs
from making modifications that lead to consumer disappointment.
226. At times, Microsoft has argued that the limitations it imposes on the ability of
OEMs to modify Windows originate in a desire to prevent its platform from becoming
fragmented, like UNIX. Microsoft believes that ISVs benefit from the fact that Windows
presents the same platform for applications development, irrespective of the underlying
hardware. Certainly, Microsoft has a legitimate interest in ensuring that OEMs do not take
Windows under license, alter its API set, and then ship the altered version. This fact does not
add credibility to Microsoft's stated justification, though, for two reasons. First, Microsoft itself
creates some degree of instability in its supposedly uniform platform by releasing updates to
Internet Explorer more frequently than it releases new versions of Windows. As things stand,
ISVs find it necessary to redistribute Microsoft's Internet-related APIs with their applications
because of nonuniformity that Microsoft has created in its own installed base. More important,
however, is the fact that none of the modifications that OEMs are known to have proposed
making would have removed or altered any Windows APIs.
227. To the extent Microsoft is apprehensive that OEMs might, absent restrictions,
change the set of APIs exposed by the software on their PCs, the concern is not that OEMs
would modify the Windows API set. Rather, the worry is that OEMs would pre-install, on top of
Windows, other software exposing additional APIs not controlled by Microsoft. In the case of
alternate user interfaces, Microsoft is fearful that, if these programs loaded automatically the first
time users turned on their PCs, the programs would attract so much usage that developers would
be encouraged to take advantage of any APIs that the programs exposed. Indeed, one user
interface in particular that OEMs could configure to load automatically and obscure the
Windows desktop Navigator exposes a substantial number of APIs. Therefore,
Microsoft's real concern has not been that OEM modifications would fragment the Windows
platform to the detriment of developers and consumers. What has motivated Microsoft's
prohibition against automatically loading shells is rather the fear once again that OEMs
would pre-install and give prominent placement to middleware that could weaken the
applications barrier to entry.
228. Like most other software products, Windows 95 and Windows 98 are covered by
copyright registrations. Since they are copyrighted, Microsoft distributes these products to
OEMs pursuant to license agreements. By early 1998, Microsoft had made these licenses
conditional on OEMs' compliance with the restrictions described above. Notwithstanding the
formal inclusion of these restrictions in the license agreements, the removal of the Internet
Explorer icon and the promotion of Navigator in the boot sequence would not have compromised
Microsoft's creative expression or interfered with its ability to reap the legitimate value of its
ingenuity and investment in developing Windows. More generally, the contemporaneous
Microsoft documents reflect concern with the promotion of Navigator rather than the
infringement of a copyright. Also notable is the fact that Microsoft did not adjust its OEM
pricing guidelines when it lifted certain of the restrictions in the spring of 1998.
229. Finally, it is significant that, while all vendors of PC operating systems
undoubtedly share Microsoft's stated interest in maximizing consumer satisfaction, the
prohibitions that Microsoft imposes on OEMs are considerably more restrictive than those
imposed by other operating system vendors. For example, Apple allows its retailers to remove
applications that Apple has pre-installed and to reconfigure the Mac OS desktop. For its part,
IBM allows its OEM licensees to override the entire OS/2 desktop in favor of a customized shell
or to set an application to start automatically the first time the PC is turned on. The reason is that
these firms do not share Microsoft's interest in protecting the applications barrier to entry.
- Pressuring OEMs to Promote Internet Explorer and to not
Pre-Install or Promote Navigator
230. Microsoft's restrictions on modifications to the boot sequence and the
configuration of the Windows desktop ensured that every Windows user would be presented with
ready means of accessing Internet Explorer. Although the restrictions also raised the costs
attendant to pre-installing and promoting Navigator, senior executives at Microsoft were not
confident that those higher costs alone would induce all of the major OEMs to focus their
promotional efforts on Internet Explorer to the exclusion of Navigator. Therefore, Microsoft
used incentives and threats in an effort to secure the cooperation of individual OEMs.
231. First, Microsoft rewarded with valuable consideration those large-volume OEMs
that took steps to promote Internet Explorer. For example, Microsoft gave reductions in the
royalty price of Windows to certain OEMs, including Gateway, that set Internet Explorer as the
default browser on their PC systems. In 1997, Microsoft gave still further reductions to those
OEMs that displayed Internet Explorer's logo and links to Microsoft's Internet Explorer update
page on their own home pages. That same year, Microsoft agreed to give OEMs millions of
dollars in co-marketing funds, as well as costly in-kind assistance, in exchange for their carrying
out other promotional activities for Internet Explorer.
232. Microsoft went beyond giving OEMs incentives to promote Internet Explorer.
The company's dealings with Compaq in 1996 and 1997 demonstrate that Microsoft was willing
to exchange valuable consideration for an OEM's commitment to curtail its distribution and
promotion of Navigator. In early 1996, at around the same time that Compaq was removing the
MSN and Internet Explorer icons and program entries from the Presario desktop, Compaq
announced its intention to work with Netscape for its internal Internet needs and on Internet
server initiatives. In response, Microsoft insisted that Compaq support Microsoft's Internet
initiatives throughout its business. To make its displeasure felt, Microsoft initiated a series of
cooperative ventures with some of Compaq's competitors, including DEC and Hewlett-Packard.
233. When Compaq eventually agreed to restore the MSN and Internet Explorer icons
and program entries to the Presario desktop, it did so because its senior executives had decided
that the firm needed to do what was necessary to restore its special relationship with Microsoft.
On May 13, 1996, Compaq signed an addendum extending the firms' Frontline Partnership to the
realm of network-related products. Pursuant to the addendum, Compaq agreed to ship Internet
Explorer as the default browser product on all of its desktop and server systems, to adopt and
promote Internet Explorer internally, and to focus the majority of Compaq's key network-
oriented announcements and marketing activities on Microsoft's technologies and strategy. In
September of the same year, Compaq agreed to offer Internet Explorer as the preferred browser
product for its Internet products and to use two or more of Microsoft's hypertext markup
language ("HTML") extensions in the home page for each of those products. Then in February
1997, Compaq committed itself to promote Internet Explorer exclusively for its PC products in
exchange for Microsoft's agreement to pay Compaq a bounty for each user that signed up for
Internet access using a Compaq PC. Despite the view of some within Compaq that the firm's
goal should be "to feature the brand leader Netscape," Compaq elected not to resume the pre-
installation of Navigator on its Presario PCs after it removed the joint Spry/Navigator icon. In
fact, Compaq stopped pre-installing Navigator on all but very small percentage of its PCs.
234. In return for Compaq's capitulation and revival of its commitment to support
Microsoft's Internet strategy, Microsoft has guaranteed Compaq that the prices it pays for
Windows will continue to be significantly lower than the prices paid by other OEMs.
Specifically, the operating system licenses signed by Compaq and Microsoft in March 1998 gave
Compaq "[g]uaranteed better" pricing than any other OEM for Windows 95, Windows 98, and
Windows NT Workstation (versions 4 and 5) until April 2000. Compaq's license fee for
Windows is so low that other OEMs would still pay substantially more than Compaq even if they
qualified for all of the royalty reductions listed in Microsoft's Market Development Agreements
("MDAs"). What is more, while Microsoft requires other OEMs to verify actual compliance
with particular milestones in order to receive Windows 98 royalty reductions, Microsoft has
secretly agreed to provide the full amount of those discounts to Compaq regardless of whether it
actually satisfies the specified conditions. In addition to a guaranteed most-favorable price on
Windows, Compaq has enjoyed free internal use of all Windows products for PCs since March
1998.
235. Microsoft's relations with Compaq beginning in late 1996 illustrate the
blandishments that Microsoft is willing to extend to OEMs that ally with it to help it capture
browser share. Microsoft's relations with Gateway and the IBM PC Company, by contrast,
reveal the pressure that Microsoft is willing to apply to OEMs that show reluctance to cooperate
on this front.
236. In February 1997 a Microsoft account representative told his counterpart at
Gateway that Gateway's use of Navigator on its own corporate network was a serious issue at
Microsoft. 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. If Gateway would replace
Navigator with Internet Explorer, Microsoft would compensate Gateway for its investment in
Netscape's product. If Gateway refused, Microsoft might be compelled to audit Gateway's
internal use of Microsoft products. Gateway was separately told by Microsoft representatives
that its decision to ship Navigator with its PCs could affect its business relationship with
Microsoft. Despite the pressure from Microsoft, Gateway refused to switch its internal use to
Internet Explorer or to stop shipping Navigator with its PCs. Although Microsoft did not
implement its more specific threats, Gateway has consistently paid higher prices for Windows
than its competitors. Microsoft's actions not only corroborate the evidence of its interest in
suppressing the usage of Navigator, they also demonstrate its ability to threaten recalcitrant
customers without losing their business.
237. Similarly, in early 1997, Microsoft tried to convince the IBM PC Company to
promote and distribute the upcoming release of its new browser, Internet Explorer 4.0. At a
meeting with IBM executives in March 1997, Microsoft representatives threatened that, if IBM
did not pre-load and promote Internet Explorer 4.0 to the exclusion of Navigator on its PCs, it
would suffer "MDA repercussions." One of the Microsoft representatives in attendance, Bengt
Ackerlind, stated that in return for IBM shipping its systems without any software that competed
with Microsoft, IBM would receive "soft dollars," marketing assistance, improved access to the
source code of Windows 95 and Microsoft's BackOffice product, and the ability to self-certify
for Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Lab provisions. In a follow-up meeting three weeks
later, Microsoft representatives again insisted that IBM distribute and promote Internet Explorer
exclusively and again offered soft dollars, marketing assistance, and MDA reductions in return.
Later that day, in a smaller meeting that Microsoft referred to as "secret discussions," Ackerlind
stated Microsoft's desire that IBM promote Internet Explorer 4.0 exclusively and warned that if
IBM pre-installed Navigator on its PCs, "We have a problem."
238. The IBM PC Company refused to promote Internet Explorer 4.0 exclusively, and
it has continued to pre-install Navigator on its PCs. The difference in the ways that Compaq and
IBM responded to Microsoft's Internet-related overtures in 1996 and 1997 contributed to the
stark contrast in the treatment the two firms have since received from Microsoft.
- Effect of Microsoft's Actions in the OEM Channel
239. Microsoft has largely succeeded in exiling Navigator from the crucial OEM
distribution channel. Even though a few OEMs continue to offer Navigator on some of their
PCs, Microsoft has caused the number of OEMs offering Navigator, and the number of PCs on
which they offer it, to decline dramatically. Before 1996, Navigator enjoyed a substantial and
growing presence on the desktop of new PCs. Over the next two years, however, Microsoft's
actions forced the number of copies of Navigator distributed through the OEM channel down to
an exiguous fraction of what it had been. By January 1998, Kempin could report to his superiors
at Microsoft that, of the sixty OEM sub-channels (15 major OEMs each offering corporate
desktop, consumer/small business, notebook, and workstation PCs), Navigator was being
shipped through only four. Furthermore, most of the PCs shipped with Navigator featured the
product in a manner much less likely to lead to usage than if its icon appeared on the desktop.
For example, Sony only featured Navigator in a folder rather than on the desktop, and Gateway
only shipped Navigator on a separate CD-ROM rather than pre-installed on the hard drive. By
the beginning of January 1999, Navigator was present on the desktop of only a tiny percentage of
the PCs that OEMs were shipping.
240. To the extent Netscape is still able to distribute Navigator through the OEM
channel, Microsoft has substantially increased the cost of that distribution. Although in January
1999 (in the midst of this trial), Compaq suddenly decided to resume the pre-installation of
Navigator on its Presario PCs, Compaq's reversal came only after Netscape agreed to provide
Compaq with approximately $700,000 worth of free advertising.
241. In sum, Microsoft successfully secured for Internet Explorer and foreclosed to
Navigator one of the two distribution channels that leads most efficiently to the usage of
browsing software. Even to the extent that Navigator retains some access to the OEM channel,
Microsoft has relegated it to markedly less efficient forms of distribution than the form
vouchsafed for Internet Explorer, namely, prominent placement on the Windows desktop.
Microsoft achieved this feat by using a complementary set of tactics. First, it forced OEMs to
take Internet Explorer with Windows and forbade them to remove or obscure it restrictions
which both ensured the prominent presence of Internet Explorer on users' PC systems and
increased the costs attendant to pre-installing and promoting Navigator. Second, Microsoft
imposed additional technical restrictions to increase the cost of promoting Navigator even more.
Third, Microsoft offered OEMs valuable consideration in exchange for commitments to promote
Internet Explorer exclusively. Finally, Microsoft threatened to penalize individual OEMs that
insisted on pre-installing and promoting Navigator. Although Microsoft's campaign to capture
the OEM channel succeeded, it required a massive and multifarious investment by Microsoft; it
also stifled innovation by OEMs that might have made Windows PC systems easier to use and
more attractive to consumers. That Microsoft was willing to pay this price demonstrates that its
decision-makers believed that maximizing Internet Explorer's usage share at Navigator's
expense was worth almost any cost.
- Excluding Navigator from the IAP Channel
242. By late 1995, Microsoft had identified bundling with the client software of IAPs
as the other of the two most efficient channels for distributing browsing software. By that time,
however, several of the most popular IAPs were shipping Navigator. Recognizing that it was
starting from behind, Microsoft devised an aggressive strategy to capture the IAP channel from
Netscape. In February 1996, Cameron Myhrvold, the Microsoft executive in charge of the firm's
relations with ISPs, outlined the strategy in a memorandum to his colleagues and superiors
within the company:
It's essential we increase the share of our browser. Network operators
[(IAPs, plus the telephone and cable companies providing Internet access
services)] are important distributors and we will license at no cost the Internet
Explorer for distribution with their Internet access business to maximize the
distribution/adoption of IE as browser of choice. We will attempt exclusive
arrangements, fight for preferred status, but settle for parity with NetScape. Even
offering IE for free will not win us every sale. In the U.S. we will offer IE
broadly to net[work ]op[erator]s and IAPs including the many hundreds of smaller
IAPs.
In the first step of this strategy, Microsoft enticed ISPs with small subscriber bases to distribute
Internet Explorer and to make it their default browsing software by offering for free both a
license to distribute Internet Explorer and a software kit that made it easy for ISPs with limited
resources to adapt Internet Explorer for bundling with their services.
243. Those who planned and implemented Microsoft's IAP campaign believed that, if
IAPs gave new subscribers a choice between Internet Explorer and Navigator, most of them
would pick Navigator both because Netscape's brand had become nearly synonymous with
the Web in the public consciousness and because Navigator had developed a much better
reputation for quality than Internet Explorer. To compensate for Navigator's advantage,
Microsoft reinforced its free distribution of Internet Explorer licenses and the access kits with
three tactics designed to induce IAPs with large subscriber bases not only to distribute and
promote Internet Explorer, but also to constrain severely their distribution and promotion of
Navigator and to convert those of their subscribers already using Navigator to Internet Explorer.
244. Microsoft's first tactic was to develop and include with Windows an Internet sign-
up program that made it simple for users to download access software from, and subscribe to,
any IAP appearing on a list assembled by Microsoft. In exchange for their inclusion on this list,
the leading IAPs agreed, at Microsoft's insistence, to distribute and promote Internet Explorer, to
refrain from promoting non-Microsoft Web browsing software, and to ensure that they
distributed non-Microsoft browsing software to only a limited percentage of their subscribers.
Although the percentages varied by IAP, the most common figure was seventy-five percent.
245. In a similar tactic aimed at a more important IAP sub-channel, Microsoft created
an "Online Services Folder" and placed an icon for that folder on the Windows desktop. In
exchange for the pre-installation of their access software with Windows and for the inclusion of
their icons in the Online Services Folder, the leading OLSs agreed, again at Microsoft's
insistence, to distribute and promote Internet Explorer, to refrain from promoting non-Microsoft
Web browsing software, and to distribute non-Microsoft browsing software to no more than
fifteen percent of their subscribers.
246. Finally, Microsoft gave IAPs incentives to upgrade the millions of subscribers
already using Navigator to proprietary access software that included Internet Explorer. To IAPs
included in the Windows Internet sign-up list, Microsoft offered the incentive of reductions in
the referral fees it charged for inclusion in the list. To OLSs in the Online Services Folder,
Microsoft offered cash bounties.
247. In sum, Microsoft made substantial sacrifices, including the forfeiture of
significant revenue opportunities, in order to induce IAPs to do four things: to distribute access
software that came with Internet Explorer; to promote Internet Explorer; to upgrade existing
subscribers to Internet Explorer; and to restrict their distribution and promotion of non-Microsoft
browsing software. The restrictions on the freedom of IAPs to distribute and promote Navigator
were far broader than they needed to be in order to achieve any economic efficiency. This is
especially true given the fact that Microsoft never expected Internet Explorer to generate any
revenue. Ultimately, the inducements that Microsoft offered IAPs at substantial cost to itself,
together with the restrictive conditions it imposed on IAPs, did the four things they were
designed to accomplish: They caused Internet Explorer's usage share to surge; they caused
Navigator's usage share to plummet; they raised Netscape's own costs; and they sealed off a
major portion of the IAP channel from the prospect of recapture by Navigator. As an ancillary
effect, Microsoft's campaign to seize the IAP channel significantly hampered the ability of
consumers to make their choice of Web browser products based on the features of those
products.
- The Internet Explorer Access Kit Agreements
248. In September 1996, Microsoft announced the availability of the "Internet Explorer
Access Kit," or "IEAK." By simply accessing the correct page on Microsoft's Web site and
clicking on a box to indicate agreement with the license terms, any IAP could download the
IEAK, which included a copy of Internet Explorer. With their technical knowledge,
sophisticated equipment, and high-bandwidth connections, IAPs found it very convenient to
download Internet Explorer and the IEAK from Microsoft's Web site.
249. Using the IEAK, an IAP could create a distinctive identity for its service in as
little as a few hours by customizing the title bar, icon, start and search pages, and "favorites" in
Internet Explorer. The IEAK also made the installation process easy for IAPs. With the IEAK,
IAPs could avoid piecemeal installation of various programs and instead create an automated,
comprehensive installation package in which all settings and options were pre-configured. In
addition to ease of customization and installation, the IEAK enabled each IAP to preset the
default home page so that customers would be taken to the IAP's Web site whenever they logged
onto the Internet. This was important to IAPs because setting the user's home page to the IAP's
Web site gave the IAPs advertising and promotional opportunities. Netscape, by contrast,
refused to allow its IAP licensees to move Navigator's home page from Netscape's NetCenter
portal site.
250. Many IAPs would have paid for the right to distribute Internet Explorer. Indeed,
Netscape was charging IAPs between fifteen and twenty dollars per copy of Navigator they
distributed. Because of the features and convenience it offered, the IEAK significantly increased
the price that IAPs would have been willing to pay. Nevertheless, Microsoft licensed the IEAK,
including Internet Explorer, to IAPs at no charge. At the time Microsoft released the IEAK,
Netscape did not offer IAPs an analogous tool. Although Netscape eventually followed
Microsoft's lead by introducing a tool kit similar to the IEAK known as Mission Control, that kit
was not made available to IAPs until June 1997 a full nine months after the release of the
IEAK. Whereas IAPs could obtain the IEAK for free, Netscape initially charged $1,995 for each
copy of Mission Control.
251. Approximately 2,500 IAPs executed an electronic copy of a license agreement for
the IEAK. Included in that number were the eighty IAPs that together accounted for ninety-five
percent of all Internet access subscribers in the United States. The IAPs that executed an IEAK
license agreement agreed to make Internet Explorer their "preferred" browsing software. The
term "preferred" was not defined in the license, and Microsoft did not investigate the extent to
which Internet Explorer was in fact enjoying "preferred" status in the client software of its IEAK
licensees. In fact, other than to provide information and respond to technical questions,
Microsoft made no effort to maintain regular direct contact with the vast majority of the IAPs
that had executed licenses.
252. Whether or not IEAK licensees actually gave Internet Explorer preferred status,
Microsoft's decision to license Internet Explorer and the IEAK to IAPs at no charge beguiled
many small ISPs that otherwise would not have done so into distributing Internet Explorer to
their subscribers. By giving up the opportunity to charge for Internet Explorer, and also by
developing the IEAK at substantial cost and offering it at no charge, Microsoft thus increased the
flow of Internet Explorer through the crucial IAP channel.
- The Referral Server Agreements
253. In the late summer of 1996, at around the time that it announced the availability of
the IEAK, Microsoft also introduced the Internet Connection Wizard ("ICW") as a feature in
Windows 95 OSR 2. If a user clicked on the ICW icon appearing on the Windows 95 desktop,
the program would automatically dial into a computer maintained by Microsoft called the
Windows Referral Server. The Referral Server would then transmit to the user's computer a list
of IAPs that provided connections to the Internet in the user's geographic locale. Included in this
list would be information about each IAP's service, including its prices. If the user then
indicated a desire to sign up for one of the listed IAPs by clicking on the appropriate entry, the
user would be connected to an IAP-maintained server that would automatically configure the
user's PC to work properly with the IAP service.
254. For several reasons, IAPs viewed inclusion in the Windows 95 Referral Server as
a valuable form of promotion. First, the ICW icon appeared prominently on the desktop of every
PC running Windows 95 (from OSR 2 onwards), which, by the middle of 1996, accounted for
the vast majority of all new PCs being shipped. Because Microsoft prohibited OEMs from
removing any of the icons that it placed on the Windows desktop, IAPs knew that the ICW
would confront all users of Windows 95 PCs the first time they turned on their systems. Second,
inclusion in the Referral Server was a highly focused form of promotion, because the IAP list
provided by the Referral Server presented itself to users who had already indicated some interest
in signing up for Internet access. Third, the easy-to-use features of the ICW heightened the
probability that a user who started using the program would complete the process of subscribing
to an IAP. Finally, inclusion in the Referral Server was a relatively inexpensive means of
distribution because, unlike "carpet bombing" with CD-ROMs, it did not require the production
and dissemination of anything tangible.
255. Despite the value that IAPs attached to placement in the Windows 95 Referral
Server, Microsoft elected to charge those that it granted placement a low bounty price that
merely went to pay down the cost of maintaining the necessary server computers and leasing the
network they ran on. Although it could have been exchanged for large bounties from IAPs,
Microsoft decided to exchange placement in the Referral Server, along with other valuable
consideration, for the agreement of the selected IAPs to promote and distribute Internet Explorer
preferentially over Navigator and to convert existing subscribers from Navigator to Internet
Explorer.
256. Between July 1996 and September 1997, Microsoft entered into Referral Server
agreements with fourteen IAPs. These were AOL, AT&T WorldNet, Brigadoon, Concentric,
Digex, EarthLink, GTE, IDT, MCI, MindSpring, Netcom, Prodigy, Sprint, and Spry. Three of
these companies did not take the technical steps necessary to appear in the Referral Server even
though they had signed agreements with Microsoft. Brigadoon failed to take those steps because
it filed for bankruptcy. For its part, Digex left the ISP business to focus exclusively on Web
hosting. GTE, on the other hand, decided to enter promotion agreements directly with OEMs
rather than abide by the conditions Microsoft attached to inclusion in the Referral Server.
Although AOL eventually entered a listing into the Referral Server, it waited until November
1998, after the release of Windows 98. The remaining IAPs in the Windows 95 Referral Server
represented ten of the top fifteen Internet access providers in the North America.
257. Pursuant to the terms of the agreements it signed with these ten IAPs, Microsoft
provided each with a listing in the Windows 95 Referral Server and mentioned them in press
releases and marketing activities relating to the ICW. Microsoft also licensed Internet Explorer
to them at no charge, and assisted them in customizing Internet Explorer for use with their
services. In exchange, the listed IAPs agreed to offer Internet Explorer as the "standard,"
"default," or "preferred" browsing software with their services. For example, Microsoft's
agreement with EarthLink required it to "[o]ffer the Microsoft Internet Explorer as the standard
web browser for [EarthLink's] ISP Service."
258. The agreements also imposed several restrictions on the ability of the IAPs in the
Referral Server to promote and distribute non-Microsoft browsing software. First, the
agreements required the IAPs to limit their promotion of browser products other than Internet
Explorer. For example, the agreements prohibited the IAPs from providing any links or other
promotions for Netscape on their services' home pages. In fact, an IAP listed in the Referral
Server was not permitted, either in its Referral Server entry or elsewhere, to express or imply to
its subscribers that they could use a browser other than Internet Explorer with the IAP's service.
Second, the agreements prohibited the ten IAPs from providing non-Microsoft browsing software
to their customers unless a subscriber specifically requested it. Third, the agreements gave
Microsoft the right to remove from the Referral Server any IAP, that in two consecutive calendar
quarters, allowed non-Microsoft browsing software to climb above a specific percentage of all
browsing software distributed by that IAP. Thus, even if the IAP ensured that all users
subscribing to its service through the Internet Connection Wizard received only Internet Explorer
with their subscriptions, Microsoft could nevertheless remove the ISP from the Referral Server if
copies of Navigator made up more than the specified percentage of the browsing software that
the IAP distributed through all sub-channels. Twenty-five percent was the figure specified in
most of the agreements. For Netcom and Sprint, the figure was fifty percent, while for IDT it
was fifteen.
259. In addition to conditioning placement in the Referral Server on an IAP's
undertaking to limit its promotion and distribution of non-Microsoft browsing software,
Microsoft through its Referral Server agreements exchanged valuable consideration for the
commitment of the ten IAPs to convert existing subscribers from Navigator to Internet Explorer.
Microsoft also compensated them for employing Internet Explorer-specific technologies whose
dissemination would encourage the developers of network-centric applications to focus on APIs
controlled by Microsoft, as opposed to Netscape or Sun. For example, in exchange for Netcom's
commitment to offer deals to its customers encouraging them to upgrade their software to the
newest version that bundled Internet Explorer, Microsoft subtracted nine dollars from the referral
fee. Microsoft also deposited one dollar into a co-marketing fund for each Netcom subscriber
who actually upgraded to client software that bundled Internet Explorer.
260. Where the agreement with Microsoft required the IAP to abandon a distribution
agreement already entered with Netscape, Microsoft compensated the IAP with additional
consideration. For instance, in response to a representation from MCI that it had already
committed to pay Netscape between five and ten million dollars for Web browsing software,
Microsoft agreed to grant MCI a credit of five dollars toward a co-marketing fund (not to exceed
five million dollars) for each copy of Internet Explorer that MCI distributed to an MCI Internet
access customer who had not already received a copy. Finally, Microsoft offered yet further
reductions in referral fees to the IAPs using Microsoft-controlled technologies likely to stimulate
developers to focus their attention on Windows-specific software interfaces rather than the cross-
platform ones provided by Netscape and Sun. For example, Microsoft offered to reduce
EarthLink's per-copy referral fee by ten dollars in exchange for EarthLink's use of at least two
ActiveX controls in the design of its home page and the use of Microsoft FrontPage server
extensions on its Web hosting servers.
261. Microsoft could have covered the cost of developing and maintaining the ICW
and the Windows Referral Server, and even made a profit, by charging higher referral fees than it
did to the favored IAPs. Instead, Microsoft bartered away so much of the referral fees it
otherwise could have charged that the costs of running the Windows Referral Server have thus
far exceeded the payments Microsoft has received from the favored IAPs. Microsoft readily
made this sacrifice in order to induce the important IAPs to take actions that aided Microsoft's
effort to exclude Navigator from the IAP channel.
262. Microsoft's motivation for the limits it placed on the distribution of non-
Microsoft browsing software by IAPs in the Windows 95 Referral Server could not have been
simply a desire to ensure that IAPs did not promote competing browsing software to subscribers
acquired with Microsoft's help. The agreements gave Microsoft the right to dismiss an IAP that
either told its subscribers they could choose Navigator or distributed too many copies of non-
Microsoft browser products. This was true even if the IAP never mentioned Navigator in its
Referral Server entry and distributed nothing but Internet Explorer to the new subscribers it
garnered from the ICW. In light of that fact, the Windows 95 Referral Server agreements emerge
as something very different from typical cross-marketing arrangements. Furthermore, while
facilitating for consumers the process of connecting to the Internet may have been one
motivation for developing the Internet Connection Wizard, that motivation cannot explain the
exclusionary terms in the Referral Server agreements. After all, contractually limiting the
distribution of non-Microsoft browsing software by IAPs did nothing to help consumers gain
easy access to the Internet. The real motivation behind the exclusionary terms in the Referral
Server agreements was Microsoft's conviction that even if IAPs were compelled to promote and
distribute Internet Explorer, the majority of their subscribers would nevertheless elect to use
Navigator if the IAPs made it readily available to them. Microsoft therefore paid a high price to
induce the most popular IAPs to encourage their customers to use Internet Explorer and
discourage them from using Navigator.
263. Absent the conditions Microsoft placed on inclusion in the Referral Server, the
IAPs would have had no reason to limit the percentage of subscribers that used one particular
browser or another. As Cameron Myhrvold explained to colleagues within Microsoft in April
1997, "ISPs are agnostic on the browser. It is against their nature to favor a browser or even a
platform. This has been damn hard for us to influence." In fact, Myhrvold told the same
colleagues that he "had a hard time guiding the ISPs to IE loyalty even when I make them sign
explicit terms and conditions in a legal contract."
264. Microsoft monitored the extent of compliance of IAPs in the Referral Server with
the shipment restrictions contained in their agreements. It did this by periodically asking each of
the ten IAPs to send Microsoft estimates of the number of copies of Internet Explorer and
non-Microsoft browsing software they were shipping. When, from time to time, various IAPs
in the Windows 95 Referral Server (specifically Netcom, Concentric, and EarthLink) fell below
the shipment quotas specified in their agreements with Microsoft, executives at Microsoft reacted
by contacting the derelict companies and urging them to meet their obligations. Concentric and
Earthlink eventually (by May 1998, if not sooner) reduced their Navigator shipments enough to
bring them below the required percentage. Microsoft never formally removed an IAP from the
Referral Server. For a time after the release of Internet Explorer 4.0, however, no entry for
Netcom appeared in the new version of Referral Server. This was at least in part due to
Netcom's failure to ensure that Internet Explorer accounted for fifty percent of the browsing
software it shipped.
265. In addition to failing, for a time, to meet the required shipment quotas, Concentric
and EarthLink occasionally promoted Navigator in ways that were arguably prohibited by the
Referral Server agreements. Despite their delinquency, Microsoft never removed Concentric and
EarthLink from the Referral Server. Of much less concern to Microsoft than the shipment and
promotion of Navigator by IAPs having signed Referral Server agreements was the fact that
Concentric and EarthLink, along with Netcom and three of the other IAPs in the Windows 95
Referral Server, also appeared in Netscape's referral server. This did not violate either the letter
or the spirit of their agreements with Microsoft, for while the agreements prohibited the IAPs in
the Windows 95 Referral Server from promoting Navigator, they did not purport to hinder
Netscape in promoting those IAPs. At any rate, Microsoft did not have reason to be concerned
with the appearance of its IAP partners in Netscape's referral server, whose main exposure was
to existing Navigator users interested in switching their IAPs. A listing in Netscape's referral
server did not help Netscape get its software on users' systems, and pursuant to their agreements
with Microsoft, the six ISPs in both Microsoft's and Netscape's referral servers were actually
placing Navigator on far fewer users' systems than they would have in the absence of their
agreements with Microsoft.
266. In reaction to Microsoft's Referral Server agreements, Netscape entered into
agreements of its own with five of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs). Under the
Netscape agreements, the RBOCs agreed to make Navigator their default Web browsing software
in all cases, except those in which subscribers affirmatively requested other browsing software.
In exchange, Netscape agreed to list the RBOCs first among the IAPs included in Netscape's
referral server. In contrast to Microsoft's agreements, Netscape's agreements with the RBOCs
imposed no restrictions on their ability to distribute other browsing software, such as Internet
Explorer, whether in response to customer requests or otherwise. Furthermore, Netscape's
contracts with the RBOCs required them to set Navigator as the default only so long as AT&T
and MCI were both restricted by their agreements with Microsoft from providing Navigator to
their customers on par with Internet Explorer. In any event, the RBOCs currently deliver
Internet access to less than five percent of the Internet access subscribers in North America.
267. Microsoft's Windows 95 Referral Server agreements were of relatively short
duration. For example, Microsoft's agreement with EarthLink provided that it would expire two
years from its signing in August 1996 unless either party elected to terminate it sooner, and both
Microsoft and EarthLink were free to terminate the agreement for any reason on thirty days'
written notice. The other Referral Server agreements were similarly short in term.
268. In April 1998, coincident with rising public criticism, the impending appearance
of Bill Gates before a Congressional panel on competition in the computer industry, and the
imminent filing of these lawsuits, Microsoft unilaterally waived the most restrictive provisions in
the Windows 95 Referral Server agreements. Specifically, Microsoft waived the provisions that
restricted the IAPs' ability to distribute non-Microsoft Web browsing software. With respect to
promotion, the revised agreements merely required the IAPs to promote Internet Explorer at least
as prominently as they promoted non-Microsoft browsers. Notably, however, the agreements
still required the IAPs to make Internet Explorer their default browser.
269. By the end of September 1998, all of the Windows 95 Referral Server agreements
had expired by their own terms. Microsoft's Windows 98 Referral Server agreements do not
contain any provisions requiring that Internet Explorer make up any particular percentage of the
IAPs' shipments. Furthermore, the Windows 98 Referral Server agreements offer no discounts
on the referral fees predicated on the IAPs' adoption of any particular Microsoft technology or
licensing any Microsoft product. With regard to promotion, the agreements require only that the
IAPs promote Internet Explorer no less favorably than non-Microsoft Web browsing software.
Still, for those IAPs concerned with the costs associated with supporting two browser products,
this parity requirement is enough to compel them not to not make Navigator readily available to
their subscribers. The new agreements have a one-year term and are terminable at will by the
IAP on ninety days' notice.
270. IAPs no longer value placement in the Windows Referral Server as much as they
did in 1996. For one reason, the ICW has apparently not been responsible for as many new IAP
subscriptions as either Microsoft or the IAPs anticipated. In fact, from the third quarter of 1996
through the third quarter of 1998, only 2.1% of new users of the Internet became IAP subscribers
through the Windows Referral Server. Partially on account of this realization, Microsoft began
in the spring of 1998 to surrender significant control over the Internet sign-up process to OEMs.
As described above, Microsoft gave the top fifty OEMs in the world the right to select both the
IAPs (up to five) that appear in the Windows 98 Referral Server on the PC systems they sell and
to determine the order in which those IAPs appear. Microsoft also permits the fifty OEMs to
keep any bounties that the IAPs pay them for inclusion in the Referral Server. The OEMs simply
pay Microsoft a nominal fee (a flat fee of approximately $10,000 plus thirty cents per subscriber)
to defray the costs of operating the Referral Server program. Furthermore (as is also discussed
above), Microsoft has allowed seven of the highest-volume OEMs to supplant the ICW
altogether.
271. By both lifting restrictions in its agreements and ceding control over the IAP sign-
up process to OEMs, in the spring of 1998, Microsoft relaxed the strictures that it had imposed in
the fall of 1996 on the distribution and promotion of Web browsing software by the most popular
IAPs. In the year-and-a-half that they were in full force, however, the restrictive terms in the
Referral Server agreements induced the major IAPs to customize their client software for Internet
Explorer, gear their promotional and marketing activities to Microsoft's technologies, and
convert substantial portions of their installed bases from Navigator to Internet Explorer. They
may have welcomed more flexibility to distribute Navigator to those subscribers that expressed
demand for it, but they had no incentive to launch an expensive campaign to reverse the tide that
Microsoft's restrictions had already generated. Consequently, few ISPs have responded to
Microsoft's contractual dispensations by increasing significantly their distribution and promotion
of Navigator. Furthermore, one of the reasons Microsoft felt comfortable relaxing the controls
on IAPs in the spring of 1998 was that it had achieved and planned to maintain control
over the distribution and promotion of Web browsing software by AOL and the other major
OLSs, whose combined subscriber base comprised most of North America's Internet users.
- The Online Services Folder Agreements
272. In late 1995 and early 1996, senior executives at Microsoft recognized that AOL
accounted for a substantial portion of all existing Internet access subscriptions and that it
attracted a very large percentage of new IAP subscribers. Indeed, AOL was and is the largest
and most important IAP. The Microsoft executives thus realized that if they could convince
AOL to distribute Internet Explorer with its client software instead of Navigator, Microsoft
would in a single coup capture a large part of the IAP channel for Internet Explorer. In the
early spring of 1996, therefore, Microsoft exchanged favorable placement on the Windows
desktop, as well as other valuable consideration, for AOL's commitment to distribute and
promote Internet Explorer to the near exclusion of Navigator. AOL's acceptance of this
arrangement has caused an enormous surge in Internet Explorer's usage share and a concomitant
decline in Navigator's share. To supplement the effects of the AOL deal, Microsoft entered
similar agreements with other OLSs. The importance of these arrangements to Microsoft is
evident in the fact that, in contrast to the restrictive terms in the Windows Referral Server
agreements, Microsoft has never waived the terms that require the OLSs to distribute and
promote Internet Explorer to the near exclusion of Navigator.
- AOL
273. Prior to 1995, OLS subscribers used proprietary access software to view only their
OLS's specialized content. Beginning in 1994, however, the public became increasingly
interested in accessing information on the Web. So to keep from losing subscribers and to attract
new ones, OLSs upgraded their services to provide access to the Web. In November 1994, for
example, AOL purchased BookLink and incorporated its Web browsing software into AOL's
proprietary access software to enable AOL's subscribers to access and view Web content.
274. While public awareness of the Web was taking hold, companies like Netscape and
Microsoft were hard at work developing Web browsing software. By the fall of 1995, a number
of OLSs, including AOL, had decided not to devote the considerable resources that would have
been required to keep up with this rapid pace of innovation. They chose instead to license state-
of-the-art Web browsing technology from a separate supplier. Microsoft saw AOL, with its
subscriber base then approaching five million, as a potential breakthrough opportunity a way
for Microsoft quickly to obtain credibility in Web browsing technology as well as usage share for
the current version of its browsing software, Internet Explorer 3.0.
275. In November 1995, David Cole of AOL advised Pete Higgins of Microsoft that
AOL was looking for Web browsing software to license and incorporate into future versions of
its proprietary access software. Bill Gates and AOL's Chairman, Steve Case, subsequently spoke
several times on the telephone. In those conversations, Gates urged that AOL representatives
meet with Microsoft technical personnel in order to get a better sense of the quality and features
of Internet Explorer 3.0. For his part, Case told Gates that he wanted Microsoft to include
AOL's client software with Windows such that AOL received the same desktop promotion that
MSN enjoyed. Gates insisted that such favorable treatment of AOL within Windows was out of
the question.
276. Lower down in Microsoft's chain of command, executives took issue with Gates'
reluctance to grant AOL favorable placement in Windows. In October 1995, before Gates and
Case began talking, a group of Microsoft executives prepared for Gates a memorandum on the
company's Internet Explorer efforts entitled, "How to Get to 30% Share in 12 Months." The
executives wrote that
we need to remove barriers to browser adoption by Online Services and Internet
Access Providers. Today MSN is an access service . . . , an online service . . . ,
and an Internet site . . . ; in other words, it competes with everyone. By bundling
MSN in the Windows box, we are threatening ISV's in each of these areas, who in
turn have no incentive to promote our Internet Browser.
277. One of the proposals the executives put forward was that Microsoft "Open Up the
Windows Box." In other words, the executives believed that, in exchange for favorable
treatment of Internet Explorer, Microsoft should include the client software of IAPs in Windows
and give those services prominent placement on the desktop, even if such placement drew
attention away from MSN. Over the months that followed, senior Microsoft executives came to
the conclusion that opening up the Windows box to MSN's competitors was a necessary price to
pay for increasing Internet Explorer's share of browser usage.
278. Case ultimately agreed to visit Microsoft's Redmond campus in January 1996. In
preparation for that meeting, Microsoft purchased PC systems from five different OEMs
(Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Packard Bell, and NEC) at retail outlet stores. When they
turned these systems on, employees at Microsoft discovered that the OEMs were already
shipping AOL's software pre-installed on their PCs and giving the AOL service more prominent
placement than MSN on the Windows desktop. From the fact that AOL was already enjoying
broad distribution and promotion on the Windows desktop through agreements with OEMs,
several senior Microsoft executives, in particular Paul Maritz and Brad Chase, concluded that
Microsoft would not be giving up all that much if it traded placement on the Windows desktop
for AOL's commitment to promote and distribute Internet Explorer. At least initially, Gates took
a different lesson from the experiment with the five PC systems. He seems to have felt that
Microsoft should react not by opening up the Windows box,' but rather by clamping down on
the ability of OEMs to configure the Windows desktop. Indeed, the discovery that OEMs were
promoting AOL on the Windows desktop was one of the things that led him to complain to
Joachim Kempin on January 6, 1996 about OEMs that were bundling non-Microsoft Internet
services and software and displaying it on their PCs "in a FAR more prominent way than MSN
or our Internet browser."
279. Case's insistence that Microsoft promote AOL on the Windows desktop stemmed
partly from factors other than the additional subscriptions expected to come from the OLS folder.
After all, AOL already enjoyed distribution agreements with major OEMs that placed an AOL
icon on the desktop of millions of new PC systems. But given that its OEM agreements tended
to be short-term and somewhat tenuous, and considering how sensitive the OEMs were to
Microsoft's will, AOL executives realized that AOL's position on the Windows desktop would
be more secure if it met with some degree of contractual acquiescence from Microsoft. After all,
whereas Microsoft retaliated in subtle and not-so-subtle ways against OEMs, such as IBM, that
pre-installed software on their PCs that Microsoft found minatory, it pronounced more extreme
sanctions against OEMs, such as Compaq, that had the temerity to remove icons and program
entries from the Windows desktop that Microsoft had placed there. Case had reason to see value,
then, in shifting AOL from being a source of software at whose promotion Microsoft took
umbrage to the dispenser of software whose placement on the Windows desktop Microsoft
guaranteed. Moreover, obtaining Microsoft's commitment to include the AOL client software
and prominent promotion for AOL in every copy of Windows would place AOL on all Windows
95 PC systems, including those sold by the multitude of OEMs whose shipment volumes were
too low to warrant the negotiation of separate distribution deals. Furthermore, placement on the
desktop in some fashion would improve AOL's negotiating position when it asked individual
large OEMs to place an AOL icon directly on the desktop of their PC systems. Whatever the
reason, and irrespective of the considerable value that Microsoft offered AOL apart from desktop
placement, Case made clear to Gates his sincere conviction that AOL would not recruit its
subscribers to Internet Explorer unless Microsoft included AOL's client software in Windows
and promoted AOL in some form on the Windows desktop.
280. Four days before Case was due to arrive at Microsoft's campus, Gates sent an E-
mail outlining Microsoft's goals in negotiating a deal with AOL to the responsible Microsoft
executives. He wrote:
What we want from AOL is that for a period of time say 2 years the
browser that they give out to their customers and the one they mention and put on
their pages and the one they exploit is ours and not Netscape[']s. We need for
them to make our browser available as the browser to existing and new customers.
We have to be sure that we don't allow them to promote Netscape as well. We
want all the hits that come off of AOL to register on servers as our browser so
people can start seeing us as having measurable browser share.
Gates understood that if AOL gave assurance that its subscribers used Internet Explorer when
browsing the Web, the measure of browser usage share data to which application developers paid
most attention i.e., server "hit" data would show a significant rise in Internet Explorer's
usage share. Gates also realized that such a commitment by AOL was worth seeking even if it
lasted for only a couple of years.
281. On January 18, 1996, Case arrived at Microsoft's campus with three other AOL
executives. During the first meeting, Microsoft described the componentized architecture of
Internet Explorer 3.0 that would allow AOL to embed the browsing software into AOL's access
software. The AOL executives viewed componentization as a highly attractive feature, because
AOL wanted its subscribers to feel they were using an AOL service whether they were viewing
proprietary AOL content or browsing content on the Web. In fact, Case and the other AOL
representatives told their Microsoft hosts that AOL wanted total control over the "browser
frame" (the windows in which Web content is displayed) to make it distinctive to AOL. In other
words, AOL wanted no menus, dialog boxes, or other visible signs that would alert AOL users to
the fact that they were using Web browsing software supplied by a company other than AOL.
282. At the end of the meeting, Case expressly acknowledged the attractiveness of
Microsoft's componentized approach. Notably, Netscape had not yet developed a
componentized version of Navigator. Netscape had assured AOL that it would do so, and AOL
believed that Netscape was capable of eventually making good on its pledge, but the fact
remained that Microsoft had already completed a componentized version of Internet Explorer.
Case was impressed enough with Internet Explorer 3.0 that when he returned to AOL he told a
number of fellow executives that, when it came to AOL's technical considerations, Microsoft
perhaps enjoyed an edge over Netscape. Still, the AOL executives saw Navigator as enjoying
better brand recognition and demonstrated success in the marketplace.
283. Later in the day on January 18, Case and his team also met with Gates, Chase, and
Chase's direct superior, Brad Silverberg, to discuss the business aspects of a potential AOL-
Microsoft alliance. At one point during the meeting, Case again told Gates that AOL needed
inclusion of its client software in Windows and prominent placement on the Windows desktop if
there was to be a closer relationship between the two companies. Gates expressed frustration that
Case continued to insist on getting an AOL icon on the Windows desktop in addition to the
technology, engineering assistance, and technical support Microsoft was offering AOL. Despite
the obvious importance that Case attached to desktop placement, Gates said he would not agree
to that condition.
284. A week after the January 18 meeting, Chase and Silverberg met with Gates. They
reiterated that, whether Gates liked it or not, an AOL icon already appeared on the desktop of the
major OEMs' PCs. Given that fait accompli, they argued, Microsoft would gain much more than
it would lose by agreeing to place AOL on the Windows desktop in exchange for AOL's
commitment to promote and distribute Internet Explorer. This time, Gates agreed to give AOL
some sort of promotion in Windows. He continued to insist, however, that Microsoft not place
an AOL icon directly on the Windows desktop. Rather, Gates agreed to include AOL, along
with other OLSs, in a generic "Online Services Folder," an icon for which would reside on the
desktop. Since MSN enjoyed a branded icon directly on the desktop, including AOL in the OLS
folder would maintain its inferior status to Microsoft's service.
285. Still, Gates viewed the concession as a significant one; he understood that it
meant undermining MSN's success in the pursuit of browser share. As he told an interviewer in
the spring of 1996:
We have had three options for how to use the "Windows Box": First, we
can use it for the browser battle, recognizing that our core assets are at risk.
Second, we could monetize the box, and sell the real estate to the highest bidder.
Or third, we could use the box to sell and promote internally content assets. I
recognize that, by choosing to do the first, we have leveled the playing field and
reduced our opportunities for competitive advantage with MSN.
286. In light of AOL's success in having gained access to the Windows desktop
through the expedient of OEM pre-installation without Microsoft's acquiescence, Gates' abiding
reluctance to grant AOL access through Microsoft's front door may have stemmed from a
preoccupation with the message such a move would send both to other firms in the computer
industry and to consumers deciding which Internet service to use. Although Gates viewed it as a
significant concession, he acquiesced in granting AOL a place in Windows because he believed
that Microsoft could not pass up the opportunity AOL presented to drive Internet Explorer's
usage share dramatically upward and to exclude Navigator from a substantial part of the IAP
distribution channel.
287. The negotiations between Microsoft and AOL proceeded throughout February and
early March 1996. On March 11, 1996, AOL announced that it had selected Navigator as the
primary Web browsing software for GNN, which was AOL's basic ISP service at the time and
had a subscriber base only two to three percent the size of the subscriber base of AOL's flagship
online service. The GNN arrangement was thus eclipsed the following day when AOL
announced that it had chosen Internet Explorer as the primary Web browsing software for its
flagship service.
288. Under the March 12 agreement, Microsoft gave AOL access to, and the right to
modify, Internet Explorer source code in order to customize it for use with AOL's proprietary
access software. This concession went far beyond the freedom that the IEAK granted IAPs to
place their own branding on Internet Explorer. Microsoft also agreed to provide AOL with
significant engineering assistance and technical support to enable AOL to integrate Internet
Explorer into AOL's proprietary access software. Further, Microsoft agreed to provide AOL
with certain specific features of Internet Explorer 3.0 by precise target dates and to ensure that
future versions of its Web browsing software would possess the latest available Internet-related
technology features, capabilities, and standards. Finally, Microsoft granted AOL free world-
wide distribution rights to Internet Explorer and agreed to distribute AOL's proprietary access
software in Windows and to place an AOL icon in the OLS folder on the Windows desktop.
289. In return for Microsoft's commitments, AOL agreed to base the proprietary access
software of its flagship online service for Windows and the Mac OS on Internet Explorer 3.0 and
to update that software as newer versions of Internet Explorer were released. Another provision
in the agreement provided that "AOL and AOL Affiliates will, with respect to Third Party
Browsers, exclusively promote, market and distribute, and have promoted, marketed and
distributed, Internet Explorer on or for use by subscribers to the AOL Flagship Service."
Specifically, AOL agreed to ensure that in successive six-month periods, neither the number of
copies of non-Microsoft Web browsing software it shipped (through any sub-channel, including
GNN), nor the number of new subscribers accessing AOL (including GNN) with non-Microsoft
Web browsing software, would exceed fifteen percent of the total number of copies of
proprietary access software that AOL distributed through any channel (i.e., through the Windows
desktop or otherwise). AOL retained the right to distribute non-Microsoft Web browsing
software to subscribers who affirmatively requested it, as long as doing so did not did not raise
the relevant shipment quotients above fifteen percent.
AOL also retained the right to provide a
link within its service through which its subscribers could reach a Web site from which they
could download a version of Navigator customized for the AOL service. At the same time,
however, the agreement prohibited AOL from expressing or implying to subscribers or
prospective subscribers that they could use Navigator with AOL. Nor did it allow AOL to
include, on its default page or anywhere else, instructions telling subscribers how to reach the
Navigator download site. In any event, as the Court has found above, downloading large
programs over the Internet involves considerable time, and frequently some frustration, for the
average user with average hardware and an analog connection. The prospects were slim that
many AOL users (who tend to be novice users with average equipment) would expend the effort
to download Navigator when they already had browsing software that worked well with the AOL
service.
Finally, while the agreement permitted AOL (subject again to the fifteen-percent
shipment quotas) to distribute non-Microsoft Web browsing software when requested by third-
party providers, distributors, and corporate accounts, it obligated AOL to use all reasonable
efforts to cause the third party to distribute that software on its own and to minimize the use of
AOL's brand name with the distribution.
290. The Microsoft executives responsible for closing the deal with AOL recognized
that AOL had agreed to distribute and promote Internet Explorer to the virtual exclusion of
Navigator. Two days after Microsoft signed the agreement with AOL, Chase sent to Microsoft's
executive staff a memorandum answering questions he thought the executives might have about
the agreement. One such question was, "I find it hard to believe that AOL is using Internet
Explorer as its browser. Are there exceptions?" Chase responded: "Yes the[re] are some but
they are pretty remote. An AOL customer could choose to use Navigator and it will be available
to be downloaded from the AOL site, though not in a prominent way. There are some
circumstances with 3rd party distribution deals where AOL has some limited flexibility. On its
GNN service, AOL can do what it wants. But for all intents and purposes it is true, AOL will be
moving its 5M customers to a new client integrated with Internet Explorer 3 starting this
summer/fall."
291. As with the restrictive provisions in the Referral Server agreements, the
provisions in the March 1996 agreement constraining AOL's distribution and promotion of
Navigator had no purpose other than maximizing Internet Explorer's usage share at Navigator's
expense. Considering that the restrictions applied to AOL's proprietary access software
regardless of the sub-channel through which it was distributed, and that Microsoft collected no
revenue from Internet Explorer, the restrictions accomplished no efficiency. They affected
consumers only by encumbering their ability to choose between competing browsing
technologies. In order to gain AOL's acceptance of these restrictions, Microsoft accorded AOL
free desktop placement that undermined its own MSN, in which Microsoft had invested hundreds
of millions of dollars. Significantly, Microsoft did not waive any of the terms of its agreement
with AOL (nor of its agreements with other OLSs) when it waived some of the restrictive
provisions in its Referral Server agreements in April 1998. The reason was Microsoft's
recognition that holding OLSs, particularly AOL, to exclusive distribution and promotion terms
was more important to maximizing Internet Explorer's usage share than holding ISPs to similar
terms.
292. Microsoft closely monitored AOL's compliance with the restrictive provisions in
the March 1996 agreement. Microsoft employees periodically inspected AOL's service for any
sign of promotions for Netscape. The scrutiny was close enough to prompt an AOL executive to
write Microsoft's Chase: "We are not selling NS advertising around its browser or otherwise
let's move on. . . . [I]t is not time to be paranoid . . . ."
293. Ever since the negotiations with Microsoft intensified in early 1996, it had been
AOL's intention to select one firm's Web browsing software and then to work closely with that
firm to incorporate its browsing technology seamlessly into the AOL flagship client software.
Regardless of which software it chose as its primary offering, though, AOL still wanted the
ability to satisfy consumer demand for competing Web browsing software. AOL did not want
users who preferred a certain brand of Web browsing software to have to go to a competing OLS
in order to obtain it. Therefore, even once it selected Internet Explorer as the software that it
would integrate seamlessly into its client, AOL would have preferred to make an AOL-
configured version of Navigator readily available to subscribers and potential subscribers.
294. Despite its preference, however, AOL did not make Navigator readily available to
subscribers after the agreement with Microsoft took effect. To the contrary, AOL made it
relatively difficult for new subscribers to obtain a version of Navigator that would work with its
client software, and it pressured existing subscribers who used Navigator to abandon it in favor
of client software that included Internet Explorer. In essence, AOL contravened its natural
inclination to respond to consumer demand in order to obtain the free technology, close technical
support, and desktop placement offered by Microsoft.
295. On October 28, 1996, Microsoft and AOL entered into an additional agreement
called the Promotional Services Agreement, whereby AOL agreed to promote its new proprietary
access software that included Internet Explorer to existing AOL subscribers, and Microsoft
agreed to pay AOL for such promotion based on results. Specifically, Microsoft agreed to pay
AOL $500,000, plus twenty-five cents (up to one million dollars) for each subscriber who
upgraded from older versions of AOL's proprietary access software to the version that included
Internet Explorer, plus $600,000 if AOL succeeded in upgrading 5.25 million subscribers by
April 1997. In addition, AOL's Referral Server agreement with Microsoft provided that AOL
would receive a two-dollar credit on referral fees for each new subscriber who used Internet
Explorer. So while the March 12, 1996 agreement ensured that nearly all new AOL subscribers
would use Internet Explorer, the Promotional Services and Referral Server agreements enlisted
AOL in the effort to convert the OLS's millions of existing subscribers to Internet Explorer. In
fulfillment of these agreements, AOL began to prompt its subscribers to download the latest
version of its client access software, complete with Internet Explorer, every time they logged off
the service.
296. It is not surprising, given the terms of the 1996 agreements between Microsoft
and AOL, that the percentage of AOL subscribers using a version of the client software that
included Internet Explorer climbed steeply throughout 1997. By January 1998, Cameron
Myhrvold was able to report to Gates and the rest of Microsoft's executive committee that
ninety-two percent of AOL's subscribers (who by then numbered over ten million) were using
client access software that included Internet Explorer. A year earlier, the same type of data had
shown that only thirty-four percent of AOL subscribers were using AOL client software that
included Internet Explorer. The marked increase resulted in no small part from AOL's efforts to
convert its existing subscribers to the newest version of its client software.
297. Even if an AOL subscriber obtains the new client software that includes Internet
Explorer, he can still browse the Web using any browsing software, including Navigator, that
happened to be installed on his hard drive. It is unlikely that many users will go to this effort,
however, given the ease of browsing with the software that comes with AOL's client software.
The average AOL user, being perhaps less technically sophisticated than the average IAP
subscriber, is particularly unlikely to expend any effort to use browsing software other than that
which comes included with the AOL software. AOL, acting pursuant to the provisions of the
March 1996 agreement, has not made it easy for its subscribers to locate, download, and install a
version of Navigator configured for its service. Consequently, those AOL subscribers who did
not already have Navigator on their systems by the time that agreement took effect were even
less likely to use Navigator.
298. So when Microsoft executives learned that ninety-two percent of AOL subscribers
were using client software that included Internet Explorer, they could rest assured that virtually
the same percentage of AOL's subscribers were using Internet Explorer whenever they connected
to the Internet with AOL. In fact, an examination of the "hit" data collected by AdKnowledge
indicates that as of early 1999, only twelve percent of AOL subscribers were using Navigator
when they browsed the Web (see Section V.H.1., infra, for a description of the method by which
AdKnowledge collects data). AOL (and its CompuServe subsidiary), in turn, accounted for a
very large percentage of all IAP subscribers. In fact, according to data Microsoft collected and
used internally, AOL and CompuServe accounted for sixty-five percent of the combined
subscriber base of the top eighty IAPs in late 1997. It is thus a reasonable deduction that the
restrictive terms Microsoft induced AOL to accept in 1996 pre-empted a substantial part of the
IAP channel for Internet Explorer.
299. On November 24, 1998, AOL and Netscape agreed that AOL would acquire
Netscape for 4.3 billion dollars' worth of AOL stock. In a related transaction, AOL entered into
a three-year strategic alliance with Sun, pursuant to which Sun would develop and market both
its and Netscape's server software and would manage the companies' joint efforts in the area of
electronic commerce. AOL purchased Netscape not just for its browsing technology, but also for
its electronic commerce business, its portal site, its brand recognition, and its talented work force.
To the extent AOL was paying for Netscape's browser business, its primary goal was not to
compete for user share against Internet Explorer. Rather, AOL was interested in Navigator to the
extent that it drove Web traffic to Netscape's popular portal site, NetCenter. AOL was also
interested in ensuring that an alternative to Internet Explorer remained viable; it wanted the
option of dropping Internet Explorer to retain enough vitality so that it would not be at the mercy
of Microsoft for software upon which the success of its online service largely depended. Finally,
AOL was interested in keeping Navigator alive in order to ensure that Microsoft did not gain
total control over Internet standards.
300. AOL had the right under its agreement with Microsoft to terminate the
distribution and promotion provisions relating to Internet Explorer on December 31, 1998. If
AOL had decided to terminate those provisions, the March 1996 agreement would otherwise
have remained in effect, and AOL could have continued to base its proprietary access software
on Internet Explorer, taking advantage of Microsoft's engineering and technical support.
Microsoft, however, would have had the option of removing AOL from the OLS folder. What is
more, Chase informed AOL that Microsoft might react to AOL's termination of the restrictive
provisions by discontinuing the OLS folder altogether, which would have disadvantaged the
AOL's subsidiary OLS, CompuServe, which also enjoyed a place in the OLS folder.
301. Despite its acquisition of Netscape, AOL did not exercise its right to terminate the
exclusivity provisions of its agreement with Microsoft at the end of 1998. AOL executives made
the reasons clear to AOL's board of directors on November 17, 1998, when they presented the
Netscape/Sun transactions for the board's approval. They wrote:
In exchange for using IE as our primary browser component, Microsoft
bundles [AOL] in the "Online Services Folder" on the Windows desktop. This is
an important, valued source of new customers for us, and therefore something we
are inclined to continue. Microsoft has made it clear that they will not continue to
include us in Windows if we don't agree to continue our "virtual exclusivity"
provisions for use of IE within [AOL]. . . . There are benefits to [Netscape] of
replacing IE with the [Netscape] browser it would dramatically shift browser
market share (from about 50/50 today to 65/35 in favor of [Netscape]). However,
our present intent is to continue with IE, partly to get the continued marketing
benefits of Windows bundling, and partly to maximize the likelihood of continued
"détente" with Microsoft.
By not exercising its right to terminate the "virtual exclusivity" provisions in the agreement with
Microsoft, AOL commited itself to abide by those restrictions until January 1, 2001.
302. AOL does not believe that it must make every possible use of Netscape's
browsing software, and maximize Navigator's usage share, in order to justify its purchase of
Netscape. Now that AOL has the capability to produce its own state-of-the-art componentized
browsing software, however, the fact remains that, of the various advantages Microsoft currently
offers AOL in exchange for its agreement to distribute and promote Internet Explorer with near
exclusivity, the only one likely to still be of great value to AOL at the beginning of the new
millennium is the inclusion of AOL's client software, and the promotion of its service, within
Windows. Assuming Microsoft continues to offer that placement to AOL after January 1, 2001,
the extent to which AOL continues to distribute and promote Internet Explorer to the exclusion
of other browsing software will depend largely on the value that AOL assigns to that placement
and to any new forms of consideration Microsoft offers. With respect to the value of placement
in the OLS folder, AOL registered approximately 970,000 new subscribers through the OLS
folder in the fiscal year ending in June 1998. This represented eleven percent of the new
subscriptions AOL gained that year, and it was enough to prompt AOL executives in November
1998 to describe the OLS folder to the AOL board as an "important, valued source of new
customers for us."
303. If AOL were to halt its distribution and promotion of Internet Explorer, the effect
on Internet Explorer's usage share would be significant, for AOL's subscribers currently account
for over one third of Internet Explorer's installed base. But even if AOL stops distributing
Internet Explorer after January 1, 2001 and updates its entire subscriber base to client software
that includes its own or some other proprietary browsing software, Microsoft will still have
ensured that, over the preceding four years (AOL subscribers began using proprietary access
software based on Internet Explorer in November 1996), a very large majority of AOL
subscribers used Internet Explorer whenever they browsed the Web through the AOL service.
This period is significantly longer than the two years Gates thought AOL's obligations would
have to last in order for the deal to be worthwhile to Microsoft.
304. AOL's subscribers now number sixteen million, and a substantial part of all Web
browsing is done through AOL's service. By granting AOL valuable desktop real estate (to
MSN's detriment) and other valuable consideration, Microsoft succeeded in capturing for
Internet Explorer, and holding for a minimum of four years, one of the single most important
channels for the distribution of browsing software. Starting the day Microsoft announced the
March 1996 agreement with AOL, and lasting at least until AOL announced its acquisition of
Netscape in November 1998, developers had reason to look into the foreseeable future and see
that non-Microsoft software would not attain stature as the standard platform for network-centric
applications. Microsoft exploited that interval to enhance dependence among developers on
Microsoft's proprietary interfaces for network-centric applications dependence that will
continue to inure to Microsoft's benefit even if AOL stops distributing Internet Explorer in the
future. The AOL coup, which Microsoft accomplished only at tremendous expense to itself and
considerable deprivation of consumers' freedom of choice, thus contributed to extinguishing the
threat that Navigator posed to the applications barrier to entry.
- Other Online Services
305. In the summer and fall of 1996, Microsoft entered into agreements with three
other OLSs, namely, AT&T WorldNet, Prodigy, and AOL's subsidiary, CompuServe. The
provisions of these agreements were substantially the same as those contained in the March 1996
agreement between Microsoft and AOL. As with the AOL agreement, Microsoft did not deign to
waive the restrictive terms in these OLS agreements when it waived similar terms in the Referral
Server agreements in the spring of 1998. The OLSs were discontented with the provisions that
limited their ability to distribute and promote non-Microsoft browsing software. Prodigy, for
one, found those provisions objectionable and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Microsoft to
make the terms less restrictive. AT&T WorldNet's negotiator also told his Microsoft
counterpart, Brad Silverberg, that AT&T wanted to remain neutral as to browsing software.
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. 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." The OLSs became even more
desperate for inclusion in the OLS folder once it was announced that their largest competitor,
AOL, had already won placement there. One Prodigy executive wrote to another two weeks after
his company signed the agreement with Microsoft, "it was absolutely critical to Prodigy's
business" and "essential in order to remain competitive" that Prodigy obtain Microsoft's
agreement to include the Prodigy Internet service icon in the OLS folder.
306. Although none of these OLSs possessed subscriber bases approaching AOL's,
they comprised, along with MSN, the most significant OLSs other than AOL. By making
arrangements with them similar to the one it enjoyed with AOL, Microsoft ensured that, for as
long as the agreements remained in effect, the overwhelming majority of OLS subscribers would
use Internet Explorer whenever they accessed the Internet. Since AOL owns CompuServe, the
acquisition of Netscape may affect CompuServe's arrangement with Microsoft in the future;
however, the acquisition does not alter the incentives for the other OLSs to enter new agreements
with Microsoft similar to the ones signed in 1996.
- Effect of Microsoft's Actions in the IAP Channel
307. As described above, Microsoft gave valuable consideration at no charge to IAPs
that agreed to distribute and promote a product that brought no revenue to Microsoft. By
tendering additional valuable perquisites (at the cost of lost revenue), Microsoft induced IAPs to
restrict drastically their distribution and promotion of Navigator. With the offer of still other
concessions, Microsoft induced IAPs to turn subscribers already using Navigator into Internet
Explorer users.
308. As Microsoft hoped and anticipated, the inducements it gave out gratis, as well as
the restrictive conditions it tied to those inducements, had, and continue to have, a substantial
exclusionary impact. First, many more copies of Internet Explorer have been distributed, and
many more IAPs have standardized on Internet Explorer, than would have been the case if
Microsoft had not invested great sums, and sacrificed potential sources of revenue, with the sole
purpose of protecting the applications barrier to entry. Second, the restrictive terms in the
agreements have prevented IAPs from meeting consumer demand for copies of non-Microsoft
browsing software pre-configured for those services. The IAPs subject to the most severe
restrictions comprise fourteen of the top fifteen access providers in North America and account
for a large majority of all Internet access subscriptions in this part of the world.
309. Not surprisingly, the inducements that Microsoft gave out and the restrictions it
conditioned them upon have resulted in a substantial increase in Internet Explorer's usage share.
A study Microsoft conducted shows that at the end of 1997, Internet Explorer enjoyed a ninety-
four percent weighted average share of shipments of browsing software by ISPs that had agreed
to make Internet Explorer their default browser. By contrast, the study shows that Internet
Explorer had only a fourteen percent weighted average share of shipments of browsing software
by ISPs that had not agreed to make Internet Explorer their default browser. The same study
shows that Microsoft's weighted average share of browser usage by subscribers to ISPs that had
made Internet Explorer their default browser was over sixty percent at the end of 1997, whereas
its weighted average share of browser usage by subscribers to ISPs that did not make Internet
Explorer their default browser was less than twenty percent.
310. An appropriate use of the AdKnowledge hit data shows the difference in Internet
Explorer's success among categories of IAPs subject to different levels of distribution and
promotion restrictions (see Section V.H.1., infra, for a description of the method by which
AdKnowledge collects data). One category was hits originating from subscribers to IAPs that,
according to a chart prepared by Microsoft for its internal use, were not subject to any
distribution or promotion restrictions. Another category was hits originating from subscribers to
any IAP. A third category was hits originating from subscribers to AOL and CompuServe. The
hit data show that, from January 1997 to August 1998, Internet Explorer's usage share among
subscribers to IAPs that were uninhibited by restrictions rose ten points, from about twenty to
about thirty percent. Over the same period, Internet Explorer's usage share among all IAP
subscribers, including those subject to restrictions, rose twenty-seven points, from twenty-two to
forty-nine percent. Finally, Internet's Explorer's usage share among subscribers to two IAPs
subject to the most severe restrictions, AOL and CompuServe, rose sixty-five points, from
twenty-two to eighty-seven percent. The differences in the degree of Internet Explorer's success
in the three categories reveal the exclusionary effect of Microsoft's interdiction of Navigator in
the IAP channel.
- Inducing ICPs to Enhance Internet Explorer's Usage Share at Navigator's Expense
311. ICPs create the content that fills the pages that make up the Web. Because this
content can include advertisements and links to download sites, ICPs also provide a channel for
the promotion and distribution of Web browsing software. Executives at Microsoft recognized
that ICPs were not nearly as important a distribution channel for browsing software as OEMs and
IAPs. Nevertheless, protecting the applications barrier to entry was of such high priority at
Microsoft that its senior executives were willing to invest significant resources to enlist even
ICPs in the effort. Executives at Microsoft determined that ICPs could aid Microsoft's browser
campaign in three ways. 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. Second, those ICPs that distributed software as well as
content could bundle Internet Explorer, instead of Navigator, with those distributions. Finally,
ICPs could increase demand for Internet Explorer, and decrease demand for Navigator, by
creating their content with Microsoft technologies, such as ActiveX, that would make the content
more appealing in appearance when accessed with Internet Explorer.
312. As early as the fall of 1995, Microsoft executives saw that they could help
reinforce the applications barrier to entry by inducing the leading ICPs to focus on Microsoft's
browsing technologies. In the October 1995 memorandum that Microsoft executives sent to
Gates on Microsoft's browser campaign, one of the suggestions was, "Get 80% of Top Web Sites
to Target Our Client." Specifically, the executives wrote:
Content drives browser adoption, and we need to go to the top five sites and ask
them, "What can we do to get you to adopt IE?" We should be prepared to write a
check, buy sites, or add features basically do whatever it takes to drive
adoption.
313. By the middle of 1996, this proposal had become corporate policy. Senior
executives at Microsoft believed that inducing the ICPs responsible for the most popular Web
sites to concentrate their distributional, promotional, and technical efforts on Internet Explorer to
the exclusion of Navigator would contribute significantly to maximizing Internet Explorer's
usage share at Navigator's expense. When Microsoft began, in late 1996, to enlist the aid of the
most popular ICPs, it used an inducement that it had already successfully employed with the top
IAPs: Microsoft created an area on the ubiquitous Windows billboard for the promotion of ICPs
and then exchanged placement in that area at no charge for the commitment of important ICPs to
promote and distribute Internet Explorer exclusively and to create their content with technologies
that would make it appear optimally when viewed with Internet Explorer. Microsoft executives
referred to this tactic as "strategic barter." As was the case with the IAPs, neither the sacrifice
that Microsoft made to enlist the aid of the top ICPs nor the restrictions it placed on them can be
explained except as components of a campaign to protect the applications barrier to entry against
Navigator.
314. The Active Desktop was a Microsoft feature that, if enabled, allowed the
Windows user to position Web pages as open windows that appear on the background, or
"wallpaper" of the Windows desktop. If the Web pages featured "push" technology, they would
automatically update themselves by downloading information from their respective servers at
times scheduled by the user. Thus, a user could position on his desktop wallpaper Web pages
that displayed periodically updated stock prices, sports scores, and news headlines. The Channel
Bar was a feature of the Active Desktop. If enabled, the Channel Bar appeared as a rectangular
graphic on the desktop wallpaper. It was divided into pre-configured links to the Web sites of
certain ICPs that implemented push technology. Microsoft introduced the Active Desktop,
including the Channel Bar, as a feature of Internet Explorer 4.0, which it released on September
30, 1997.
315. As pre-configured by Microsoft, the top channel on the Channel Bar linked to a
Microsoft Web site, called the "Active Channel Guide," that provided a list of sites enabled with
push technology. The next five channels were each labeled with a generic category such as
"News & Technology" or "Business." Clicking on one of these five channels brought up a
display of icons for specific Web sites. For example, clicking on the "Sports" channel brought
up a display including icons for sports-related Web sites such as ESPN SportsZone and CNN SI.
Below the five generic category channels were branded ones, each of which would link the user
directly to a specific ICP's Web site.
316. Considering how ICPs generate revenue, it is not surprising that they attached
great value to placement on the Channel Bar. Most ICPs charge fees for placing advertisements
on their Web pages. In addition, some ICPs display certain of their content only to users who
pay a fee. The higher the volume of user traffic an ICP's site attracts, the higher the rates it can
charge for the placement of advertising on its sites. Higher volume also brings increased revenue
to ICPs that charge users for content. Microsoft pre-configured Internet Explorer 4.0 so that the
Active desktop and the Channel Bar would appear by default on a user's Windows 95 PC
system, and Microsoft forbade OEMs to disable either feature. Microsoft and the ICPs
consequently surmised that a very high volume of user traffic would be driven to the Web sites
for which channels appeared on the Channel Bar. Intuit, for one, believed that placement on the
Windows desktop would provide it with unparalleled promotional and distributional advantages.
As a result, the company was prepared to pay a substantial fee for placement on the Channel Bar.
The managers of ZDNet felt the same way, as did the executives responsible for Disney's
Internet content. Some ICPs, including Intuit, even admitted to Microsoft that inclusion on the
Channel Bar was critical to them and asked what they would be obliged to pay to be included.
317. Based on the interest ICPs expressed, as well as Microsoft's own assessment of
the value of placement on the Channel Bar, executives at Microsoft considered charging ICPs for
inclusion on the Channel Bar. They estimated that ICPs appearing directly on the Channel Bar
would pay as much as $10 million per year, and that even ICPs appearing under the generic
channels would pay a couple of million dollars each annually. These estimates proved to
comport well with the value that ICPs themselves actually attached to inclusion in the Channel
Bar, at least before the feature had been tested in the marketplace. For example, in December
1996, more than nine months before the Active Desktop made its debut, Microsoft signed an
agreement with PointCast pursuant to which PointCast agreed to pay $10 million for the first
year that its channel would appear directly on the Channel Bar.
318. Following the signing of its agreement with PointCast, Microsoft proceeded to
enter similar "Top Tier" or "Platinum" agreements with twenty-three other ICPs, all in the
summer and early fall of 1997. Microsoft used the term "Top Tier" to refer to the four non-
Microsoft ICPs (including PointCast) given placement directly on the Channel Bar and the term
"Platinum" to describe the twenty ICPs included in the five generic categories accessible from
the Channel Bar. Although the agreements were individually negotiated and their terms varied to
some extent, the typical agreement obligated Microsoft to promote the ICP's business in three
ways. First, Microsoft agreed to include on the Channel Bar (or in one of the lists accessible
directly from the Channel Bar) a link that would send a user directly to the ICP's "push" site.
Second, Microsoft agreed to promote the ICP's content in national public-relations and
computer-industry events, as well as on Microsoft Web sites. Finally, Microsoft agreed to
include introductory content from the ICP with certain distributions of Windows and Internet
Explorer.
319. The agreements did not obligate the Top Tier and Platinum ICPs to pay money to
Microsoft in exchange for any of the benefits, including placement on the Windows desktop, that
Microsoft extended to them. Rather, the agreements obligated the ICPs to compensate Microsoft
in other ways. Although the agreement that PointCast signed purported to call for a payment of
ten million dollars to Microsoft, it entitled PointCast to a discount on the full amount if it
behaved as other ICPs undertook to do in their own Top Tier and Platinum agreements with
Microsoft.
320. The first obligation that the ICPs undertook was to distribute Internet Explorer
and no "Other Browser" in connection with any custom Web browsing software or CD-ROM
content that they might offer. The term "Other Browser" was defined in the agreements as Web
browsing software that ranked first or second by organizations in the business of measuring the
usage of browsing software. This obligation was pertinent only to the six Top Tier and Platinum
ICPs that distributed Web browsing software during the term of the agreements: PointCast,
CNet, Intuit, AOL, Disney, and National Geographic.
321. The Top Tier and Platinum agreements also required the signatory ICPs to
promote Internet Explorer and no "Other Browser" as their "browser of choice." In particular,
the ICPs were required to display a logo for Internet Explorer and no "Other Browser" on the
home page of the sites specified in the agreements and on any other pages on which the ICP
typically displayed such links. The ICPs were also required to place Internet Explorer download
links on their Web sites and to remove any links to Navigator's download site. Aggregating the
Web sites offered by the twenty-four Top Tier and Platinum ICPs, the number of Web sites
affected by this provision was thirty-one.
322. A third provision that the ICPs accepted in return for placement on the Channel
Bar was a prohibition against their entering agreements with a vendor of an "Other Browser"
whereby the ICPs would pay money or provide other consideration to the vendor in exchange for
the vendor's promotion of the ICP's branded content. Finally, the agreements required the ICPs,
in designing their Web sites, to employ certain Microsoft technologies such as Dynamic HTML
and ActiveX. Some of the agreements actually required the ICPs to create "differentiated
content" that was either available only to Internet Explorer users or would be more attractive
when viewed with Internet Explorer than with any "Other Browser." For example, the
agreement with Intuit provided: "Some differentiated content may be available only to IE users,
some may simply be best when used with IE,' with acceptable degradation when used with other
browsers."
323. 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. For example, Microsoft demanded that Disney remove its distinctive
branding from its link on Navigator's user interface and threatened to remove Disney from the
Channel Bar if it did not accede. Executives at Disney believed that such a requirement went
beyond the language of the Top Tier agreement that Disney had signed with Microsoft, but they
saw no recourse in making an issue of the matter, for Microsoft could keep the Disney icon off
the Channel Bar during the pendency of the dispute, and Microsoft would be less amenable to
promotional opportunities for Disney in the future. Therefore, Disney capitulated. In a similar
fashion, a Microsoft employee told a counterpart at Wired Digital that even if the agreement
between the companies did not technically prohibit it, Wired Digital would be violating the spirit
of its agreement if it placed a link to any of its subsidiary sites on Navigator's user interface.
What Microsoft wanted to avoid were announcements suggesting that any of Microsoft's ICP
partners were also cooperating with Netscape.
324. Intuit is a leading developer of software designed to help individuals and small
businesses manage their finances. A consumer can use one of Intuit's popular products by
purchasing a copy of the software, but Intuit makes additional features available through its
Quicken.com Web site. Thus, Intuit is both an ISV and an ICP. Beginning in late 1995, Intuit
distributed Navigator with its products in order to ensure that its users could access the features
provided through Quicken.com. In 1996, Microsoft commenced the process of converting Intuit
from a Netscape partner to a distributor of Internet Explorer. In July of that year, Gates reported
to other Microsoft executives on his attempt to convince Intuit's CEO to distribute Internet
Explorer instead of Navigator:
I made it clear to him that beyond giving him the best browser technology for no
cost that we were only will[ing] to do some very modest favors in addition to that.
. . . I was quite frank with him that if he had a favor we could do for him that
would cost us something like $1M to do that in return for switching browsers in
the next few months I would be open to doing that.
325. Intuit did not accept Gates' offer immediately, but less than a year later, in June
1997, Intuit became one of the ICPs to sign a Platinum agreement with Microsoft. This allowed
Intuit to place a link to Quicken.com under the "Business" heading on Microsoft's Channel Bar.
In return, however, the agreement required Intuit to distribute Internet Explorer, and no "Other
Browser," with its software products, including those not distributed through the Channel Bar.
Intuit also agreed to the other terms, relating to the promotion of browsing technologies, business
relationships with Netscape, and the adoption of Internet Explorer technologies, that applied to
the other Top Tier and Platinum ICPs.
326. Microsoft would have granted Intuit a license to distribute the componentized
version of Internet Explorer at no charge even if Intuit had not entered a Platinum Agreement. In
the absence of the agreement's restrictive terms, in fact, Intuit likely would have distributed the
componentized version of Internet Explorer with its products while simultaneously promoting
Navigator and distributing to consumers who requested it a version of Navigator specially-
configured for Intuit's products. The only way Intuit could gain a place on the Channel Bar,
however, was by agreeing to the provisions that required it to limit its promotion of Navigator, to
cease distributing that browser altogether, and to refuse to pay Netscape to promote Intuit
products on Netscape's Web sites. Intuit accepted these terms reluctantly, for Navigator
remained a popular product with consumers, and Netscape's Web sites still attracted a great deal
of traffic.
327. In addition to the Top Tier and Platinum agreements, Microsoft entered into two
other types of agreements with ICPs. First, Microsoft signed so-called "Gold" agreements with
between thirty and fifty ICPs. Pursuant to these agreements, Microsoft included ICPs in the
"Active Channel Guide" Web site, which appeared whenever a Windows user clicked on the top
link on the Channel Bar. In exchange for this promotion, the Gold-agreement ICPs agreed to
promote Internet Explorer on at least equal footing with other browsing technology, including
Navigator.
328. Second, Microsoft entered into IEAK agreements with between eight and twelve
ICPs devoted to business-related content. Under the typical IEAK agreement, Microsoft agreed
to include functionality in the IEAK that would facilitate the inclusion of a link to the ICP's Web
site under the "Business" category of the Channel Bar. In exchange, the ICPs committed to
distributing Internet Explorer exclusively (to the extent they distributed any browsing software),
to promote Internet Explorer as their "browser software of choice," to refrain from promoting
any "Other Browser" (defined as in the other ICP agreements) on their Web sites, and to create
content that could be accessed optimally only with Internet Explorer.
329. Cross-marketing arrangements in competitive markets do not necessarily make
those markets less competitive; however, four characteristics distinguish this case from situations
in which such agreements are benign. First, Microsoft was able to offer ICPs an asset whose
value competitors could not hope, on account of Microsoft's monopoly power, to match.
Second, Microsoft bartered that asset not to increase demand for a revenue-generating product,
but rather to suppress the distribution and diminish the attractiveness of technology that
Microsoft saw as a potential threat to its monopoly power. Third, and more specifically,
Microsoft prohibited the ICPs from compensating Netscape for promotion of their products even
while not attempting to prohibit the promotion itself. This reveals that Microsoft's motivation
was not simply a desire to generate brand associations with Internet Explorer. Finally, Microsoft
went beyond encouraging ICPs to take advantage of innovations in Microsoft's technology,
explicitly requiring them to ensure that their content appeared degraded when viewed with
Navigator rather than Internet Explorer. Microsoft's desire to lower demand for Navigator was
thus independent of, and far more malevolent than, a simple desire to increase demand for
Internet Explorer.
330. The terms of Microsoft's agreements with ICPs cannot be explained in customary
economic parlance absent Microsoft's obsession with obliterating the threat that Navigator posed
to the applications barrier to entry. Absent that obsession, Microsoft would not have given ICPs
at no charge licenses to distribute Internet Explorer. What is more, Microsoft would not have
incurred the cost of componentizing Internet Explorer and then licensed that version to Intuit at
no charge. By sacrificing opportunities to cover its costs and even make a profit, Microsoft
advanced its strategic goal of maximizing Internet Explorer's usage share at Navigator's expense.
Whereas Microsoft might have developed the Channel Bar without ulterior motive as a matter of
product improvement, it would not have exchanged placement on the Channel Bar for terms as
highly and broadly restrictive as the ones it actually extracted from ICPs. Nevertheless, and to
Microsoft's dismay, circumstances prevented these restrictions from having a large impact on the
relative usage shares of Internet Explorer and Navigator.
331. Despite Microsoft's and the ICPs' expectations to the contrary, consumers
showed little interest in the Channel Bar, or in the Active Desktop in general, when the features
debuted in the fall of 1997. Moreover, reviews of the Channel Bar in computer-related
publications were generally unfavorable. The Channel Bar may not have attracted consumer
interest, but the ICP agreements relating to the Channel Bar did attract controversy. Indeed,
Gates faced pointed questions about them when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary
Committee in March 1998. Microsoft took several measures to quell the public criticism in early
April 1998. First, it waived the most restrictive terms in the Top Tier and Platinum agreements;
thereafter, the agreements required ICPs merely to promote Internet Explorer in a manner at least
equal to their promotion of Navigator. Second, Microsoft made no attempt to renew the Gold
and IEAK agreements, which had expired by their own terms in March 1998. Third, Microsoft
authorized its OEM licensees to configure the Windows 98 desktop so that the Channel Bar
would not appear by default, and nearly every major OEM availed itself of the permission.
Deeming the Channel Bar more trouble than it was worth, Microsoft decided to eliminate the
feature entirely from future versions of Windows, including Windows 98 updates. Therefore, the
provisions requiring ICPs to exclusively distribute and promote Internet Explorer had all expired
within seven months of the Channel Bar's release. All of the Top Tier and Platinum agreements
had expired by their own terms by December 31, 1998. In light of its decision to discontinue the
Channel Bar, Microsoft did not seek to renew any of them.
332. For a period of about eight months, however, agreements with Microsoft had
prohibited approximately thirty-four ICPs from distributing Navigator and from promoting
Navigator in all but a few ways. For an overlapping period of between a year and a year-and-a-
half, those thirty-four ICPs, plus between thirty and fifty more, were required to promote Internet
Explorer at least as prominently as they promoted Navigator. Although the affected Web sites
made up only a tiny percentage of those existing on the Web, they comprised the offerings of all
but a few of the most popular ICPs. If the estimation of one Microsoft employee in June 1996
can be considered accurate, the affected ICPs accounted for a significant percentage of the Web
traffic in North America. 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. For one thing, only six of the affected ICPs distributed any Web browsing software
bundled with their products during the period in which Microsoft's distributional restrictions
remained in effect. AOL obviously distributed a substantial volume of Web browsing software
during this period, but since AOL was separately precluded under its Online Services Folder
agreement from distributing virtually any non-Microsoft browsing software, AOL would not
have distributed a significant number of Navigator copies even if it had not entered a Top Tier
agreement with Microsoft.
333. Pursuant to its agreement with Microsoft, Intuit distributed over five million
copies of Internet Explorer with the 1998 versions of its products. 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. Still, Intuit had distributed over five million
copies of Navigator with the 1997 versions of its products. Unconstrained by its agreement with
Microsoft, Intuit might have distributed with its 1998 products a sum approaching that number of
Navigator copies along with the componentized version of Internet Explorer (particularly if the
CD-ROM represented its primary distribution vehicle). Of the affected ICPs (excluding AOL),
Intuit almost certainly distributed the most Web browsing software bundled with its products.
334. All of the Top Tier, Platinum, and IEAK ICPs were capable of including
download links on their Web pages. While many of these ICPs had included such links for
Navigator prior to entering agreements with Microsoft, only Internet Explorer download links
were allowed while the restrictive terms were in effect. On the whole, it is reasonable to deduce
from the evidence that the restrictions Microsoft imposed on ICPs prevented the distribution and
installation of a significant quantity, but certainly less than ten million, copies of Navigator.
335. The terms Microsoft imposed did prevent a number of the ICPs otherwise inclined
to do so from compensating Netscape for its promotion of the ICPs' content in Navigator or on
Netscape's Web sites. While they were in effect, Microsoft's restrictions probably deprived
Netscape of revenue measured in millions of dollars, but nowhere near $100 million.
336. It appears that, at the time the obligation expired, Microsoft had not yet begun to
enforce its requirement that the Top Tier, Platinum, and IEAK ICPs develop content that would
appear more attractive when viewed with Internet Explorer than when viewed with Navigator.
Moreover, there is no evidence that any ICP other than Disney developed any "differentiated
content" in response to its agreement with Microsoft. Therefore, there is insufficient evidence to
find that the requirements that Microsoft sought to impose with respect to the use of Microsoft-
specific browsing technologies had any discernible, deleterious impact on Navigator's usage
share.
- Directly Inducing ISVs to Rely on Microsoft's Browsing Technologies
Rather than APIs Exposed by Navigator
337. Since 1995, more and more ISVs have, like Intuit, enhanced the features of their
applications by designing them to take advantage of the type of content and functionality
accessible through browsing software. An increasing number of these applications actually rely
on browsing software to function. Microsoft's efforts to maximize Internet Explorer's share of
browser usage at Navigator's expense were intended to encourage developers to use Windows-
specific technologies when they wrote their applications to rely on a browser. In addition to
creating this incentive indirectly, by disadvantaging Navigator, Microsoft also targeted
individual ISVs directly, extracting from them commitments to make their Web-centric
applications reliant on technology specific to Internet Explorer.
338. Because of the importance of "time-to-market" in the software industry, ISVs
developing software to run on Windows products seek to obtain beta releases and other technical
information relating to Windows as early and as consistently as possible. Since Microsoft
decides which ISVs receive betas and other technical support, and when they will receive it, the
ability of an ISV to compete in the marketplace for software running on Windows products is
highly dependent on Microsoft's cooperation. Netscape learned this lesson in 1995.
339. In dozens of "First Wave" agreements signed between the fall of 1997 and the
spring of 1998, Microsoft has promised to give preferential support, in the form of early
Windows 98 and Windows NT betas, other technical information, and the right to use certain
Microsoft seals of approval, to important ISVs that agree to certain conditions. One of these
conditions is that the ISVs use Internet Explorer as the default browsing software for any
software they develop with a hypertext-based user interface. Another condition is that the ISVs
use Microsoft's "HTML Help," which is accessible only with Internet Explorer, to implement
their applications' help systems.
340. By exchanging its vital support for the agreement of leading ISVs to make
Internet Explorer the default browsing software on which their products rely, Microsoft has
ensured that many of the most popular Web-centric applications will rely on browsing
technologies found only in Windows and has increased the likelihood that the millions of
consumers using these products will use Internet Explorer rather than Navigator. Microsoft's
relations with ISVs thus represent another area in which it has applied its monopoly power to the
task of protecting the applications barrier to entry.
- Foreclosing Apple as a Distribution Channel for Navigator
341. In the summer of 1995, Microsoft had been willing to cede to Netscape the
development of browsing software for the Mac OS, provided that Netscape would stop
competing with the platform-level browsing technologies that Microsoft was developing for its
32-bit Windows products. The genesis of this offer had been Microsoft's belief that Netscape
could never become the leading platform for network-centric software development if it did not
distribute a middleware layer for the soon-to-be dominant 32-bit Windows platform. But once
Netscape confirmed its determination to offer a middleware layer that would expose the same set
of APIs on Windows, the Mac OS, and other platforms, Microsoft recognized that it needed to
stifle the attention that developers would be inclined to devote to those APIs, even when the they
rested on top of a non-Windows platform like the Mac OS. After all, if Navigator became so
popular on the Mac OS that developers made extensive use of the APIs exposed by that version
of Navigator, those developers would be disposed to take advantage of identical APIs exposed by
the version of Navigator written for the dominant platform, Windows. Microsoft therefore set
out to convince developers that applications relying on APIs exposed by Navigator would not
reach as many Mac OS users as applications that invoked platform technologies found
exclusively in Windows. Therefore, Microsoft set out to recruit Mac OS users to Internet
Explorer, and to minimize Navigator's usage share among Mac OS users.
342. Just as pre-installation and promotion by OEMs is one of the most effective
means of raising the usage share of browsing software among users of Intel-compatible PC
systems, pre-installation and promotion by Apple is one of the most effective means of raising
the usage share of browsing software among the users of Apple PC systems. Recognizing this,
Bill Gates consistently urged Microsoft executives to persuade Apple to pre-install the Mac OS
version of Internet Explorer on its PC systems and to feature it more prominently than the Mac
OS version of Navigator.
343. By the summer of 1996, Apple was already shipping Internet Explorer with the
Mac OS, but it was pre-installing Navigator as the default browsing software. After a meeting
with Apple in June 1996, Gates wrote to some of his top executives: "I have 2 key goals in
investing in the Apple relationship - 1) Maintain our applications share on the platform and 2)
See if we can get them to embrace Internet Explorer in some way." Later in the same message,
Gates expressed his desire that Apple "agree to immediately ship IE on all their systems as the
standard browser."
344. One point of leverage that Microsoft held over Apple was the fact that ninety
percent of Mac OS users running a suite of office productivity applications had adopted
Microsoft's Mac Office. In 1997, Apple's business was in steep decline, and many doubted that
the company would survive much longer. Observing Apple's poor performance in the
marketplace and its dismal prospects for the future, many ISVs questioned the wisdom of
continuing to spend time and money developing applications for the Mac OS. Had Microsoft
announced in the midst of this atmosphere that it was ceasing to develop new versions of Mac
Office, a great number of ISVs, customers, developers, and investors would have interpreted the
announcement as Apple's death notice.
345. Recognizing the importance of Mac Office to Apple's survival, Microsoft
threatened to cancel the product unless Apple compromised on a number of outstanding issues
between the companies. One of these issues was the extent to which Apple distributed and
promoted Internet Explorer, as opposed to Navigator, with the Mac OS.
346. 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. The
message reflected Waldman's understanding that Microsoft was threatening to cancel Mac
Office:
The pace of our discussions with Apple as well as their recent unsatisfactory
response have certainly frustrated a lot of people at Microsoft. The threat to
cancel Mac Office 97 is certainly the strongest bargaining point we have, as doing
so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately. I also believe that Apple is
taking this threat pretty seriously . . . .
347. Waldman was actually an advocate for releasing Mac Office 97 promptly, and he
pressed for that outcome in his message to Gates and Maffei. Although they applauded
Waldman's devotion to the product, Gates and Maffei made clear that the threat of canceling
Mac Office was too valuable a source of leverage to give up before Microsoft had extracted
acceptable concessions from Apple. Maffei wrote Waldman, "Ben - great mail, but [we] need a
way to push these guys and this is the only one that seems to make them move." In his response
to Waldman, Gates asked whether Microsoft could conceal from Apple in the coming month the
fact that Microsoft was almost finished developing of Mac Office 97.
348. In order to assure his superiors that he was pursuing corporate policy despite his
personal convictions, Waldman reported to Maffei in his June 1997 message that he had recently
told his counterpart at Apple that Maffei "would be recommending to Bill [Gates] that we cancel
Mac Office 97." Waldman believed that his counterpart "got the message that we would, in fact,
cancel." Waldman went on to write that when his counterpart had asked what specific problems
Microsoft had with Apple's recent response to Microsoft's proposals, Waldman had replied by
mentioning four issues, including "IE equal access." By that, Waldman meant Microsoft's
demand that the Mac OS make Internet Explorer just as available to its users as it made
Navigator. According to Waldman, the Apple employee had responded that Apple would not be
able to change the Mac OS's default browser from Navigator until it released the next version of
the operating system product in the summer of 1998.
349. 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." One of the several reasons for this, Gates wrote, was that "Apple let us
down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had
already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce
the cancellation of Mac Office . . . ."
350. Within a month of Gates' call to Amelio, Steve Jobs was once again Apple's
CEO, and the two companies had settled all outstanding issues between them in three
agreements, all of which were signed on August 7, 1997. Under the agreement titled
"Technology Agreement," which remains in force today, Microsoft's primary obligation is to
continue releasing up-to-date versions of Mac Office for at least five years. Among the
obligations that the Technology Agreement places on Apple are several relating to browsing
software.
351. First, Apple has agreed, for as long as Microsoft remains in compliance with its
obligation to support Mac Office, to "bundle the most current version of Microsoft's Internet
Explorer for Macintosh . . . with all system software releases for Macintosh Computers
(MacOS') sold by Apple." The Technology Agreement also provides: "While Apple may
bundle browsers other than Internet Explorer with such Mac OS system software releases, Apple
will make Internet Explorer for Macintosh the default selection in the choice of all included
internet browsers (i.e., when the user invokes the "Browse the Internet" or equivalent icon, the
Mac OS will launch Internet Explorer for Macintosh)." In fulfillment of this requirement, Apple
did not include Navigator in the default installation of the Mac OS 8.5 upgrade product. In other
words, Navigator is not installed on the computer hard drive during the default installation,
which is the type of installation most users elect to employ. Therefore, most users who upgraded
their Macintosh systems to Mac OS 8.5 were unable to access Navigator without doing a
customized installation. Having already installed an altogether adequate browser (Internet
Explorer) when the Mac OS 8.5 upgrade completed its default installation process, however,
most users are unlikely to trouble to install Navigator as well.
352. The Technology Agreement further provides that "[a]ny other internet browsers
bundled in the Mac OS system software sold by Apple shall be placed in folders in the software
as released." In other words, Apple may not position icons for non-Microsoft browsing software
on the desktop of new Macintosh PC systems or Mac OS upgrades. Moreover, the agreement
states that "Apple will not be proactive or initiate actions to encourage users to swap out Internet
Explorer for Macintosh." Both Apple and Microsoft read this term to prohibit Apple from
promoting non-Microsoft browsing software. The agreement even states that Apple will
"encourage its employees to use Microsoft Internet Explorer for Macintosh for all Apple-
sponsored events and will not promote another browser to its employees." Pursuant to this
provision, Apple's management has instructed the firm's employees to not use Navigator in
demonstrations at trade shows and other public events. Also with regard to the promotion of
browser technology, the agreement requires Apple to display the Internet Explorer logo on "all
Apple-controlled web pages where any browser logo is displayed." Finally, the agreement grants
Microsoft the right of first refusal to supply the default browsing software for any new operating
system product that Apple develops during the term of the agreement.
353. At the same time that it entered the Technology Agreement, Microsoft concluded
a "Preferred Stock Purchase Agreement" and a "Patent Cross License Agreement" with Apple.
These latter two agreements place obligations on Microsoft that are unrelated to Mac Office, and
they bind Apple in areas other than browsing software. The fact that Microsoft and Apple
entered two other agreements at the same time that they entered the Technology Agreement does
not change the fact that Microsoft's commitment to continue developing Mac Office was at least
partial consideration for Apple's commitment to distribute and promote Internet Explorer more
favorably than Navigator. Indeed, the language of the agreements themselves demonstrates that
Microsoft and Apple saw the Mac Office and Internet Explorer obligations as more closely
linked to each other than to any other obligations the parties simultaneously undertook: Whereas
the provision in the Technology Agreement setting forth Apple's obligations relating to browsing
software explicitly states that those obligations will last as long as Microsoft complies with its
obligation to continue supporting Mac Office, the provisions in the other two agreements
describing the patent cross-license and Microsoft's purchase of Apple stock mention neither
browsing software nor Mac Office.
354. That the Mac Office and browsing software obligations are tied to each other is
highlighted by the fact that the Microsoft executives who negotiated the agreement believe that
Microsoft's remedy, were Apple to fail to meet its obligations with respect to browsing software,
would be to discontinue Mac Office. When, in February 1998, a Microsoft employee proposed
giving Apple an HTML control in exchange for Apple's agreement to use Internet Explorer as its
standard browser internally, Waldman informed the employee that Apple was already obligated
to use Internet Explorer as its standard browser internally and that Microsoft would revive the
threat to discontinue Mac Office if Apple failed to comply with its obligation. In Waldman's
words:
Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the
"standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though
the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is
that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use
Office as a club.
For at least a year after the Technology Agreement went into effect, Waldman and other
Microsoft employees continued to use the threat of reduced commitment to Mac Office in
holding Apple to its commitments to support Internet Explorer.
355. Apple increased its distribution and promotion of Internet Explorer not because of
a conviction that the quality of Microsoft's product was superior to Navigator's, or that consumer
demand for it was greater, but rather because of the in terrorem effect of the prospect of the loss
of Mac Office. To be blunt, Microsoft threatened to refuse to sell a profitable product to Apple, a
product in whose development Microsoft had invested substantial resources, and which was
virtually ready for shipment. Not only would this ploy have wasted sunk costs and sacrificed
substantial profit, it also would have damaged Microsoft's goodwill among Apple's customers,
whom Microsoft had led to expect a new version of Mac Office.
The predominant reason
Microsoft was prepared to make this sacrifice, and the sole reason that it required Apple to make
Internet Explorer its default browser and restricted Apple's freedom to feature and promote non-
Microsoft browsing software, was to protect the applications barrier to entry. More specifically,
the requirements and restrictions relating to browsing software were intended to raise Internet
Explorer's usage share, to lower Navigator's share, and more broadly to demonstrate to
important observers (including consumer, developers, industry participants, and investors) that
Navigator's success had crested. Had Microsoft's only interest in developing the Mac OS
version of Internet Explorer been to enable organizational customers using multiple PC
operating-system products to standardize on one user interface for Web browsing, Microsoft
would not have extracted from Apple the commitment to make Internet Explorer the default
browser or imposed restrictions on its use and promotion of Navigator.
356. Microsoft understands that PC users tend to use the browsing software that comes
pre-installed on their machines, particularly when conspicuous means of easy access appear on
the PC desktop. By guaranteeing that Internet Explorer is the default browsing software on the
Mac OS, by relegating Navigator to less favorable placement, by requiring Navigator's exclusion
from the default installation for the Mac OS 8.5 upgrade, and by otherwise limiting Apple's
promotion of Navigator, Microsoft has ensured that most users of the Mac OS will use Internet
Explorer and not Navigator. Although the number of Mac OS users is very small compared to
the Windows installed base, the Mac OS is nevertheless the most important consumer-oriented
operating system product next to Windows. Navigator needed high usage share among Mac OS
users if it was ever to enable the development of a substantial body of cross-platform software
not dependent on Windows. By extracting from Apple terms that significantly diminished the
usage of Navigator on the Mac OS, Microsoft severely sabotaged Navigator's potential to
weaken the applications barrier to entry.
- Microsoft's Success in Excluding Navigator from the Channels that Lead
Most Efficiently to Browser Usage
357. 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. Microsoft did not actually prevent users from obtaining and
using Navigator (although it tried to do as much in June 1995), but Microsoft did make it
significantly less convenient for them to do so. Once Internet Explorer was seen as providing
roughly the same browsing experience as Navigator, relatively few PC users showed any
inclination to expend the effort required to obtain and install Navigator. Netscape could still
carpet bomb the population with CD-ROMs and make Navigator available for downloading. In
reality, however, few new users (i.e., ones not merely upgrading from an old version of
Navigator to a new one) had any incentive to install much less download and install
software to replicate a function for which OEMs and IAPs were already placing perfectly
adequate browsing software at their disposal. The fact that Netscape was forced to distribute tens
of millions of copies of Navigator through high-cost carpet-bombing in order to obtain a
relatively small number of new users only discloses the extent of Microsoft's success in
excluding Navigator from the channels that lead most effectively to browser usage.
- The Success of Microsoft's Effort to Maximize Internet Explorer's Usage
Share at Navigator's Expense
358. Microsoft's efforts to maximize Internet Explorer's share of browser usage at
Navigator's expense have done just that. The period since 1996 has witnessed a large increase in
the usage of Microsoft's browsing technologies and a concomitant decline in Navigator's share.
This reversal of fortune might not have occurred had Microsoft not improved the quality of
Internet Explorer, and some part of the reversal is undoubtedly attributable to Microsoft's
decision to distribute Internet Explorer with Windows at no additional charge. The relative
shares would not have changed nearly as much as they did, however, had Microsoft not devoted
its monopoly power and monopoly profits to precisely that end.
- The Change in the Usage Shares of Internet Explorer and Navigator
359. A developer of network-centric applications wants as many consumers as possible
to acquire and use its products. It knows that only consumers running a browser that exposes the
requisite APIs will be able to use network-centric applications that rely on those APIs. So in
deciding whether to concentrate its development work on APIs exposed by Netscape's Web
browsing software or Microsoft's, one of the questions a developer will ask is how much
Navigator is being used in relation to Internet Explorer. Dividing the total usage of each browser
product by the total usage of all browsing software (i.e., usage of the installed base) answers this
question, for it reveals the proportion of total usage accounted for by each product. The relative
attractiveness to developers of Navigator and Internet Explorer thus depends to a large extent on
their relative shares of all browser usage.
360. According to estimates that Microsoft executives cited to support their testimony
in this trial, and those on which Microsoft relied in the course of its business planning, the shares
of all browser usage enjoyed by Navigator and Internet Explorer changed dramatically in favor
of Internet Explorer after Microsoft began its campaign to protect the applications barrier to
entry. These estimates show that Navigator's share fell from above eighty percent in January
1996 to fifty-five percent in November 1997, and that Internet Explorer's share rose from around
five percent to thirty-six percent over the same period. In April 1998, Microsoft relied on
measurements for internal planning purposes that placed Internet Explorer's share of all browser
usage above forty-five percent. These figures are broadly consistent with ones AOL relied on in
evaluating its acquisition of Netscape: AOL determined that Navigator's share had fallen from
around eighty percent at the end of 1996 to the "mid 50% range" in July 1998 and that Internet
Explorer's share had climbed to between forty-five and fifty percent of the domestic market by
late 1998.
361. 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. Dividing the new usage of each browser product by the
new usage of all browsing software (i.e., incremental usage) helps to formulate a prediction. If a
browser product's current share of all browser usage is fifty percent, and its share of incremental
browser usage is thirty percent, the product's share of all browser usage will, assuming the share
of incremental usage does not rise, gradually approach thirty percent, as the size of the
population of browser users grows and current users update their PC systems. So Navigator's
and Internet Explorer's relative attractiveness as platforms also depends greatly on their relative
shares of incremental browser usage. Microsoft's tactics were focused on channels for the
distribution of new browsing software. Moreover, excluding the installed base from the
calculation heightens the sensitivity with which share of incremental browser usage reacts to
contemporaneous forces. Microsoft was thus particularly interested in share of incremental
browser usage, not only as an indication of Navigator's and Internet Explorer's relative
attractiveness as platforms, but also as a sensitive reading of the impact that its actions were
having.
362. According to data on which Microsoft relied in the course of its business, Internet
Explorer was, by late 1997, capturing a larger share of incremental browser usage than
Navigator. Specifically, data that the company then deemed reliable showed that fifty-seven
percent of the new users of browsing software in the last six months of 1997 used Internet
Explorer, while only thirty-nine percent used Navigator. By February 1998, Microsoft's data
showed that sixty-two percent of the new Internet connections over the previous six months were
using Internet Explorer, versus thirty-eight percent for Navigator. Since there is no indication
that Navigator users as a group employ their browsers more than Internet Explorer users, these
data indicate that Internet Explorer's share of incremental usage had exceeded Navigator's by
late 1997. This meant that Internet Explorer's share of all browser usage was moving to surpass
Navigator's. To Microsoft, these numbers not only marked a significant decline in Navigator's
attractiveness as a platform, they also reflected the substantial impact of Microsoft's actions.
363. The "hit" data collected by AdKnowledge comport with the share estimates on
which Microsoft and AOL relied internally. AdKnowledge is a company that markets Web
advertising services. Once the proprietor of a Web site sells space on its pages to an advertiser,
AdKnowledge stores the advertisements on its servers and delivers them to the appropriate pages
when they are accessed by users. One day every month, AdKnowledge monitors the number of
times that each of the advertisements appears on users' screens. Each appearance of an
advertisement on a user's screen is called a "hit." As part of the hit data it collects,
AdKnowledge logs the type of Web browsing software used to access the pages on which the
particular advertisements appear. Thus, the AdKnowledge data can be used to calculate monthly
snapshots of the shares of usage that particular types of Web browsing software attract from the
population of users accessing the Web pages that AdKnowledge monitors. 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.
364. The AdKnowledge data show that Internet Explorer's share of hits to the
monitored Web sites rose from twenty percent in January 1997 to forty-nine percent in August
1998 and that Navigator's share fell from seventy-seven to forty-eight percent over the same
period. Dividing the change in the respective numbers of Internet Explorer and Navigator hits
from the first quarter of 1998 to the third quarter of 1998 by the change in the number of total
hits over that same period yields a fifty-seven percent share of incremental browser usage for
Internet Explorer and a forty percent share for Navigator. These figures are again consistent with
the estimates on which Microsoft and AOL relied internally.
365. 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. When the
subscriber seeks to return to the first page, AOL delivers it from the local server rather than
returning to the Web for a refreshed version of the page. AdKnowledge only counts a hit when
one of the monitored advertisements is served to a users' computer from the Web. Thus,
AdKnowledge undercounts hits by AOL users. AdKnowledge's attempt to implement "cache-
fooling" measures has not eliminated the effects of caching. Largely as a result of the restrictive
terms Microsoft prevailed upon AOL to accept, Internet Explorer enjoys a very high share of
browser usage by AOL subscribers. Consequently, Internet Explorer's share of all hits detected
by AdKnowledge is lower than its actual share of all usage. Correcting for the effects of caching
results in virtually no change to the AdKnowledge-based calculation of relative browser usage
shares in early 1997; however, it raises by approximately five percent the figure representing
Internet Explorer's share of browser usage in the third quarter of 1998.
366. Although AdKnowledge only monitors hits to commercial Web pages, there is no
indication that certain types of Web browsing software are used more than others to access
commercial, versus non-commercial Web sites. Furthermore, the same share trends reflected in
the AdKnowledge data appear in data collected from a prominent academic site. The University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champlain monitors, on a weekly basis, the browsing software accessing its
popular engineering Web site. The resulting data, which AOL found important enough to rely on
in evaluating the purchase of Netscape, yield virtually the same usage share figures as do the
AdKnowledge data.
367. AdKnowledge does not undertake to collect data on the use of browsing software
to navigate proprietary OLS content or intra-enterprise networks ("intranets"). This does not
detract from the value of the AdKnowledge data as a measure of usage share for developers'
purposes, however, for most developers of network-centric applications look to write
applications that will run through Web sites, not through OLS proprietary content or pages on an
intranet. Most developers will therefore pay most attention to estimates of the extent to which a
particular type of browsing software is being used to browse the Web. Moreover, only a very
small percentage of the copies of Web browsing software in operation are used exclusively to
navigate intranets.
368. The advertisement banners on some Web sites alternate between different
advertisements. Assuming that AdKnowledge delivers these advertisements, a single visit to a
Web site could register with AdKnowledge as multiple hits as the advertisements "rotate" on the
user's screen. This phenomenon does not spoil the essential reliability of the AdKnlowledge
data as a reporter of browser usage share, though. In order for there to be a bias of significant
proportions, users of either Internet Explorer or Navigator would have to exhibit a special
propensity to keep pages open as the advertisements rotate. There is no reason to believe that
this is the case.
369. Thus none of the characteristics of the AdKnowledge data invalidate it as a useful
measure of browser usage share. It is understandable, therefore, that in evaluating the purchase
of Netscape, AOL viewed AdKnowledge's hit data as one of the more reliable indicators of
trends in the relative shares of all browser usage enjoyed by Navigator and Internet Explorer.
370. 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. The calculations that Schmalensee made using the MDC data lead to results that differ, in
one main respect, from the results generated with hit data. Whereas the AdKnowledge data show
Navigator's share falling from seventy-five to fifty-six percent from the first to the third quarter
of 1997, the MDC data show Navigator's share holding steady at fifty-five or fifty-six percent
over the same period. Although both sources show Internet Explorer's share gaining steadily
throughout that period, the MDC data indicate that Internet Explorer's rise was coming not at
Navigator's expense, but rather at the expense of other browser products, which, according to the
MDC data, collectively enjoyed a substantial share into 1997. The AdKnowledge data, by
contrast, indicate that the share of usage attributable to browsers other than Internet Explorer and
Navigator has never been substantial and that Internet Explorer's rise has always been at
Navigator's expense.
371. The MDC estimates of the shares attributable to Navigator and other non-
Microosft browser products in 1996 differ markedly from those on which Microsoft and AOL
relied in the course of making business judgments. Notably, in August 1996, four months after it
commissioned the first MDC survey, Microsoft continued to estimate Navigator's share as
exceeding eighty percent. In fact, the senior Microsoft executives who testified in this trial still
believed at the time of their testimony that Navigator's usage share in late 1995 and early 1996
had exceeded eighty percent. To the extent the MDC estimates differ from those which
Microsoft and AOL used internally, and which senior Microsoft executives still embrace, the
Court is inclined to trust the latter estimates. More broadly, the sets of questions contained in the
MDC surveys and the internally inconsistent responses they evoked reveal that a substantial
percentage of the respondents misunderstood some of the patently ambiguous questions they
were asked, and that a large number responded to questions when they were unsure of, or even
clearly misinformed regarding, the answers. The Court accordingly gives no weight to any of the
conclusions that Microsoft draws from MDC survey data.
372. In summary, the estimates on which Microsoft and AOL relied and the
measurements made by AdKnowledge and the University of Illinois provide an adequate basis
for two findings: First, from early 1996 to the late summer of 1998, Navigator's share of all
browser usage fell from above seventy percent to around fifty percent, while Internet Explorer's
share rose from about five percent to around fifty percent; second, by 1998, Navigator's share of
incremental browser usage had fallen below forty percent while Internet Explorer's share had
risen above sixty percent. All signs point to the fact that Internet Explorer's share has continued
to rise and Navigator's has continued to decline since the late summer of 1998. It is safe to
conclude, then, that Internet Explorer's share of all browser usage now exceeds fifty percent, and
that Navigator's share has fallen below that mark.
373. These trends will continue. In February 1998, Kumar Mehta, the Microsoft
employee responsible for tracking browser share, told Brad Chase that Microsoft's best model
projected that Internet Explorer's usage share in early 2001 would stand between sixty and sixty-
eight percent. This comports with the forecast on which AOL relied in deciding to purchase
Netscape: The report presented to AOL's board of directors prior to their vote on the transaction
predicted that Navigator's usage share would fall to between thirty-five and forty percent by late
2000. The most reasonable prediction, then, is that by January 2001, Internet Explorer's usage
share will exceed sixty percent while Navigator's share will have fallen below forty percent.
374. Navigator's large and continuing decline in usage share has demonstrated to
developers the product's failure to mature as the standard software used to browse the Web.
Internet Explorer's success in gaining usage share, together with the lack of contenders other
than Navigator, has simultaneously sent the clear message to developers that no platform for
network-centric applications can compete for ubiquity with the 32-bit Windows API set.
- The Cause of the Change in Usage Shares
375. The changes in usage share described above would likely not have occurred had
Microsoft not improved its browsing software to the point that, by late 1996, the average user
could not discern a significant difference in quality and features between the latest versions of
Internet Explorer and Navigator. As Microsoft's top executives predicted, however, Internet
Explorer's quality and features have never surpassed Navigator's to such a degree as to compel a
significant part of Navigator's installed base to switch to Internet Explorer. An internal
Microsoft presentation concluded in February 1998 that "[m]any customers see MS and NS as
parity products; no strong reason to switch," and another internal review three months later
reported, "IE4 is fundamentally not compelling" and "[n]ot differentiated from Netscape
v[ersion]4 seen as a commodity." For a time, even among new users, Navigator was likely to
win most choices between comparable browser software, because most people associated the
Internet and cutting-edge browsing technology with Netscape rather than with Microsoft. So, if
Microsoft had taken no action other than improving the quality and features of its browser,
Internet Explorer's share of usage would have risen far less and far more slowly than it actually
did. While Internet Explorer's increase in usage share accelerated and began to cut deeply into
Navigator's share after Microsoft released the first version of Internet Explorer (3.0) to offer
quality and features approaching those of Navigator, the acceleration occurred months before
Microsoft released the first version of Internet Explorer (4.0) to win a significant number of
head-to-head product reviews against Navigator. This indicates that superior quality was not
responsible for the dramatic rise Internet Explorer's usage share.
376. Including Internet Explorer with Windows at no additional charge likely helped
the usage share of Microsoft's browsing software. It did not, however, prevent OEMs from
meeting demand for Navigator, which remained higher than demand for Internet Explorer well
into 1998. Moreover, bundling Internet Explorer with Windows had no effect on the distribution
and promotion of browsing software by IAPs or through any of the other channels that Microsoft
sought to pre-empt by other means. Had Microsoft not offered distribution licenses for Internet
Explorer and other things of great value to other firms at no charge; had it not prevented
OEMs from removing the prominent means of accessing Internet Explorer and limited their
ability to feature Navigator; and had Microsoft not taken all the other measures it used to
maximize Internet Explorer's usage share at Navigator's expense, its browsing software would
not have weaned such a large amount of usage share from Navigator, much less overtaken
Navigator in three years.
I. The Success of Microsoft's Effort to Protect the Applications Barrier to
Entry from the Threat Posed by Navigator
377. In late 1995 and early 1996, Navigator seemed well on its way to becoming the
standard software for browsing the Web. Within three years, however, Microsoft had
successfully denied Navigator that status, and had thereby forestalled a serious potential threat to
the applications barrier to entry. Indeed, Microsoft's Kumar Mehta felt comfortable expressing
to Brad Chase in February 1998 his "PERSONAL opinion" that "the browser battle is close to
over." Mehta continued: "We set out on this mission 2 years ago to not let netscape dictate
standards and control the browser api's [sic]. All evidence today says they don't."
378. The population of browser users is expanding so quickly that Navigator's installed
base has grown even as its usage share has fallen. In fact, AOL credited an estimate stating that
Navigator's installed base in the United States alone grew from fifteen million in 1996 to thirty-
three million in December 1998. By all indications, Navigator's installed base will continue to
grow. This does not mean, however, that Navigator is or will be an attractive enough
platform for the development of network-centric applications to weaken the applications barrier
to entry. As discussed above, the APIs that Navigator exposes could only attract enough
developer attention to threaten the applications barrier to entry if Navigator became or
appeared destined to become the standard software used to browse the Web. Navigator's
installed base may continue to grow, but Internet Explorer's installed base is now larger and
growing faster. Consequently, the APIs that Navigator exposes will not attract enough developer
attention to spawn a body of cross-platform, network-centric applications large enough to
dismantle the applications barrier to entry.
379. Not only did Microsoft prevent Navigator from undermining the applications
barrier to entry, it inflicted considerable harm on Netscape's business in the process. By
ensuring that the firms comprising the channels that lead most efficiently to browser usage
distributed and promoted Internet Explorer to the virtual exclusion of Navigator, Microsoft
relegated Netscape to more costly and less effective methods of distributing and promoting its
browsing software. After Microsoft started licensing Internet Explorer at no charge, not only to
OEMs and consumers, but also to IAPs, ISVs, ICPs, and even Apple, Netscape was forced to
follow suit. Despite the fact that it did not charge for Internet Explorer, Microsoft could still
defray the massive costs it was undertaking to maximize usage share with the vast profits earned
licensing Windows. Because Netscape did not have that luxury, it could ill afford the dramatic
drop in revenues from Navigator, much less to pay for the inefficient modes of distribution to
which Microsoft had consigned it. The financial constraints also deterred Netscape from
undertaking technical innovations that it might otherwise have implemented in Navigator.
Microsoft was not altogether surprised, then, when it learned in November 1998 that Netscape
had surrendered itself to acquisition by another company.
380. Were AOL ever to attempt to revive Navigator's usage share with the intention of
building it into a significant platform for the development of network-centric applications, that
effort would not make any headway before January 1, 2001, when AOL's obligation to distribute
Internet Explorer on a preferential basis expires. In fact, there is presently no indication that
AOL will try even after that date to raise Navigator's usage share substantially. First of all, as
explained above, AOL need not revive Navigator's usage share in order to achieve an adequate
return on its investment in Netscape. Secondly, while the due-diligence summary and board-of-
directors presentation that preceded the Netscape acquisition discuss AOL's commitment to
invest marketing resources in an effort to stem the slide in Navigator's share, neither report
indicates any intention on AOL's part to invest in actually raising Navigator's share.
381. Also detracting from the notion that AOL is committed to reviving the
middleware threat through Navigator is the fact that AOL included in the November 1998
agreement with Sun a provision making clear that the new partnership with Sun in no way
obligated AOL to drop Internet Explorer from its client software in favor of Navigator. 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 . . . may seek to renew and/or extend and expand its present agreement with
Microsoft Corporation to continue to distribute Internet Explorer."
382. Bill Gates himself, who is not one to underestimate threats to Microsoft's
business, apparently concluded after reviewing the November 1998 transactions that AOL would
not seek to develop a platform that would compete with Microsoft's network-centric interfaces.
In December 1998, during a meeting convened to analyze the implications of the
AOL/Netscape/Sun transactions, Gates declared to the assembled Microsoft executives, "AOL
doesn't have it in their genes to attack us in the platform space."
383. Finally, if its coveted placement in the Online Services Folder fails to entice AOL
into extending its agreement with Microsoft past January 2001, Microsoft assuredly has the
wherewithal to offer AOL additional inducements in exchange for yet more commitments that
will preclude a resurgence of Navigator's usage share. Even if, despite the absence of signs to
that effect, AOL drops Internet Explorer and adopts Navigator with a mind to reviving
Navigator's usage share after January 1, 2001, Navigator's transformation into a platform
attractive enough to threaten the applications barrier would be a chimerical aspiration, especially
considering Microsoft's increasing influence over network-centric standards. In any event,
nothing that happens after January 1, 2001 will change the fact that Microsoft has succeeded in
forestalling for several years Navigator's evolution in that direction.
384. Although the suspicion lingers, the evidence is insufficient to find that
Microsoft's ambition is a future in which most or all of the content available on the Web would
be accessible only through its own browsing software. The evidence does, however, reveal an
intent to ensure that if and when full-featured, server-based applications begin appearing in large
numbers on the Web, the number of them relying solely on middleware APIs (such as those
exposed by Navigator) will be too few to attenuate the applications barrier to entry.
385. At least partly because of Navigator's substantial usage share, most developers
continue to insist that their Web content be more-or-less as attractive when accessed with
Navigator as it is when accessed with Internet Explorer. Navigator will retain an appreciable
usage share through the end of 2000. After that point, AOL may be able and willing to prevent
Internet Explorer's share from achieving such dominance that a critical mass of developers will
cease to concern themselves with ensuring that their Web content at least be accessible through
non-Microsoft browsing software. So, as matters stand at present, while Microsoft has
succeeded in forestalling the development of enough full-featured, cross-platform, network-
centric applications to render the applications barrier penetrable, it is not likely to drive non-
Microsoft PC Web browsing software from the marketplace altogether.
VI.
MICROSOFT'S RESPONSE TO THE THREAT POSED BY SUN'S
IMPLEMENTATION OF JAVA
386. For Microsoft, a key to maintaining and reinforcing the applications barrier to
entry has been preserving the difficulty of porting applications from Windows to other platforms,
and vice versa. In 1996, senior executives at Microsoft became aware that the number of
developers writing network-centric applications in the Java programming language had become
significant, and that Java was likely to increase in popularity among developers. Microsoft
therefore became interested in maximizing the difficulty with which applications written in Java
could be ported from Windows to other platforms, and vice versa.
- Creating a Java Implementation for Windows that Undermined Portability
and Was Incompatible with Other Implementations
387. Although Sun intended Java technologies eventually to allow developers to write
applications that would run on multiple operating systems without any porting, the Java class
libraries have never exposed enough APIs to support full-featured applications. Java developers
have thus always needed to rely on platform-specific APIs in order to write applications with
advanced functionality. Recognizing this, Sun sponsored a process for the creation of a software
method that would allow developers writing in Java to rely directly upon APIs exposed by a
particular operating system in a way that would nevertheless allow them to port their applications
with relative ease to JVMs running on different operating systems.
388. On March 12, 1996, Sun signed an agreement granting Microsoft the right to
distribute and make certain modifications to Sun's Java technologies. Microsoft used this license
to create its own Java development tools and its own Windows-compatible Java runtime
environment. Because the motivation behind the Sun-sponsored effort ran counter to Microsoft's
interest in preserving the difficulty of porting, Microsoft independently developed methods for
enabling "calls" to "native" Windows code that made porting more difficult than the method that
Sun was striving to make standard. Microsoft implemented these different methods in its
developer tools and in its JVM. Microsoft also discouraged its business allies from aiding Sun's
effort. For example, Gates told Intel's CEO in June 1996 that he did not want the Intel
Architecture Labs cooperating with Sun to develop methods for calling upon multimedia
interfaces in Windows.
389. Since they were custom-built for enabling native calls to Windows, and because
they were developed by the firm with the most intimate knowledge of Windows, the native
methods that Microsoft produced were slightly easier for developers to use than the method that
derived from the Sun-sponsored effort, and Java applications using Microsoft's methods tended
to run faster than ones calling upon Windows APIs with Sun's method. If a developer relied on
Microsoft's methods rather than Sun's, however, his Java application would be much more
difficult to port from the Windows-compatible JVM to JVMs designed to run on different
operating systems.
390. Microsoft easily could have implemented Sun's native method along with its own
in its developer tools and its JVM, thereby allowing Java developers to choose between speed
and portability; however, it elected instead to implement only the Microsoft methods. The result
was that if a Java developer used the Sun method for making native calls, his application would
not run on Microsoft's version of the Windows JVM, and if he used Microsoft's native methods,
his application would not run on any JVM other than Microsoft's version. Far from being the
unintended consequence of an attempt to help Java developers more easily develop high-
performing applications, incompatibility was the intended result of Microsoft's efforts. In fact,
Microsoft would subsequently threaten to use the same tactic against Apple's QuickTime.
Microsoft continued to refuse to implement Sun's native method until November 1998, when a
court ordered it to do so. It then took Microsoft only a few weeks to implement Sun's native
method in its developer tools and JVM.
391. Although the Java class libraries have yet to provide enough functionality to
support full-featured applications, they have gradually expanded toward that goal. In 1997, Sun
added a class library called Remote Method Invocation, or "RMI," which allowed Java
applications written to call upon it to communicate with each other in certain useful ways.
Microsoft was not willing to stand by and allow Java developers to rely on new Java class
libraries unimpeded. The more that Java developers were able to satisfy their need for
functionality by calling upon the Java class libraries, the more portable their applications would
become. Microsoft had developed a set of Windows-specific interfaces to provide functionality
analogous to the functionality RMI offered; it wanted Java developers to rely on this Windows-
specific technology rather than Sun's cross-platform interface. Microsoft thus refused to include
RMI as a standard component of the Java runtime environment for Windows that it shipped with
Internet Explorer 4.0.
392. The license agreement it had signed with Sun the previous year obligated
Microsoft to offer RMI, at a minimum, on its developer Web site. Microsoft did so, but with
respect to the RMI beta release, it buried the link in an obscure location and neglected to include
an entry for it in the site's index. Referring to RMI and any Java developers who might access
Microsoft's site looking for it, a Microsoft employee wrote to his approving manager, "They'll
have to stumble across it to know it's there. . . . I'd say it's pretty buried."
393. It is unclear whether Microsoft ultimately placed RMI in a more prominent place
on its developer Web site. Even if it did, the fact that RMI was not shipped with Microsoft's
Java runtime environment for Windows meant that Java developers could not rely on its being
installed on consumers' PC systems. If developers wanted their Java applications to call upon
communications interfaces guaranteed to be present on Windows users' systems, they had no
choice but to rely on the Microsoft-specific interfaces instead of RMI. Microsoft undertook the
effort to remove RMI from the rest of the Java class libraries, instead of simply leaving it in
place and allowing developers to choose between it and Windows-specific interfaces, for the sole
purpose of making it more difficult for Java developers to write easily portable applications.
394. In a further effort intended to increase the incompatibility between Java
applications written for its Windows JVM and other Windows JVMs, and to increase the
difficulty of porting Java applications from the Windows environment to other platforms,
Microsoft designed its Java developer tools to encourage developers to write their Java
applications using certain "keywords" and "compiler directives" that could only be executed
properly by Microsoft's version of the Java runtime environment for Windows. Microsoft
encouraged developers to use these extensions by shipping its developer tools with the
extensions enabled by default and by failing to warn developers that their use would result in
applications that might not run properly with any runtime environment other than Microsoft's
and that would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to port to JVMs running on other platforms.
This action comported with the suggestion that Microsoft's Thomas Reardon made to his
colleagues in November 1996: "[W]e should just quietly grow j++ [Microsoft's developer tools]
share and assume that people will take more advantage of our classes without ever realizing they
are building win32-only java apps." Microsoft refused to alter its developer tools until
November 1998, when a court ordered it to disable its keywords and compiler directives by
default and to warn developers that using Microsoft's Java extensions would likely cause
incompatibilities with non-Microsoft runtime environments.
- Inducing Developers to Use the Microsoft Implementation of Java Rather
than Sun-Compliant Implementations
395. If all Microsoft had done to combat the growth of easily portable Java
applications had been to increase the incompatibility between its Java implementation and ones
complying with Sun's standards, the effect might have been limited. For if Sun could have
assured developers that a Windows-compatible Java runtime environment that complied with
Sun's standards would be installed on as many Windows PCs as Microsoft's version, and that it
would run Java applications as well as Microsoft's, developers might have considered the cost in
portability associated with relying on Microsoft-specific technologies and instead written their
Java applications using Sun's developer tools. When Netscape announced in May 1995 that it
would include with every copy of Navigator a copy of a Windows JVM that complied with Sun's
standards, it appeared that Sun's Java implementation would achieve the necessary ubiquity on
Windows.
396. Determined to induce developers to write Java applications that relied on its
version of the runtime environment for Windows rather than on Sun-compliant ones, Microsoft
made a large investment of engineering resources to develop a high-performance Windows JVM.
This made Microsoft's version of the runtime environment attractive on its technical merits. To
hinder Sun and Netscape from improving the quality of the Windows JVM shipped with
Navigator, Microsoft pressured Intel, which was developing a high-performance Windows-
compatible JVM, to not share its work with either Sun or Netscape, much less allow Netscape to
bundle the Intel JVM with Navigator. Gates was himself involved in this effort. During the
August 2, 1995 meeting at which he urged Intel to halt IAL's development of platform-level
software, Gates also announced that Intel's cooperation with Sun and Netscape to develop a Java
runtime environment for systems running on Intel's microprocessors was one of the issues
threatening to undermine cooperation between Intel and Microsoft. By the spring of 1996, Intel
had developed a JVM designed to run well on Intel-based systems while complying with Sun's
cross-platform standards. Microsoft executives approached Intel in April of that year and urged
that Intel not take any steps toward allowing Netscape to ship this JVM with Navigator.
397. By bundling its version of the Windows JVM with every copy of Internet
Explorer and expending some of its surplus monopoly power to maximize the usage of Internet
Explorer at Navigator's expense, Microsoft endowed its Java runtime environment with the
unique attribute of guaranteed, enduring ubiquity across the enormous Windows installed base.
As one internal Microsoft presentation from January 1997 put it, the company's response to
cross-platform Java entailed "[i]ncreased IE share integrat[ion] with Windows." Partly as a
result of the damage that Microsoft's efforts against Navigator inflicted on Netscape's business,
Netscape decided in 1998 that it could no longer afford to do the engineering work necessary to
continue bundling up-to-date JVMs with Navigator. Consequently, it announced that, starting
with version 5.0, Navigator would cease to be a distribution vehicle for JVMs compliant with
Sun's standards.
398. The guaranteed presence of Microsoft's runtime environment on every Windows
PC and the decreasing likelihood that the primary host of the Sun-compliant runtime
environment (Navigator) would be present, induced many Java developers to write their
applications using Microsoft's developer tools, for doing so guaranteed that those applications
would run in the Java environment most likely to be installed on a Windows user's PC. Owing
to Microsoft's deliberate design decisions, more developers using Microsoft's Java developer
tools meant that more Java applications would rely on the Windows-specific technologies in
Microsoft's runtime environment and thus would not be portable.
399. Microsoft was not content to rely solely on its anti-Navigator efforts to ensure that
its Java runtime environment would be the only one guaranteed to be present on Windows PC
systems. After all, Netscape was not the only ISV capable of placing copies of a runtime
environment on users' systems. Many developers of network-centric applications were just as
capable of bundling compatible runtime environments with their applications as they were of
bundling browsing software. If the right runtime environment already came bundled with the
right browsing software, all the more convenient for the ISV. If not (as would increasingly be
the case after Netscape stopped bundling a runtime environment with Navigator), though, the
ISV could still separately obtain the desired runtime environment and bundle it with every copy
of its product.
400. Recognizing ISVs as a channel through which Java runtime environments that
complied with Sun's standards could find their way onto Windows PC systems, Microsoft
induced ISVs to distribute Microsoft's version instead of a Sun-compliant one. First, Microsoft
made its JVM available to ISVs separately from Internet Explorer so that those uninterested in
bundling browsing software could nevertheless bundle Microsoft's JVM. Microsoft's David
Cole revealed the motivation for this step in a message he wrote to Jim Allchin in July 1997:
"[W]e've agreed that we must allow ISVs to redistribute the Java VM standalone, without IE.
ISVs that do this are bound into Windows because that's the only place the VM works, and it
keeps them away from Sun's APIs."
401. Microsoft took the further step of offering valuable things to ISVs that agreed to
use Microsoft's Java implementation. Specifically, in the First Wave agreements that it signed
with dozens of ISVs in 1997 and 1998, Microsoft conditioned early Windows 98 and Windows
NT betas, other technical information, and the right to use certain Microsoft seals of approval on
the agreement of those ISVs to use Microsoft's version of the Windows JVM as the "default."
Microsoft and the ISVs all read this requirement to obligate the ISVs to ensure that their Java
applications were compatible with Microsoft's version of the Windows JVM. The only effective
way to ensure compatibility with Microsoft's JVM was to use Microsoft's Java developer tools,
which in turn meant using Microsoft's methods for making native calls and (unless the
developers were especially wary and sophisticated) Microsoft's other Java extensions. Thus, a
very large percentage of the Java applications that the First Wave ISVs wrote would run only on
Microsoft's version of the Windows JVM. With that in mind, the First Wave ISVs would not
have any reason to distribute with their Java applications any JVM other than Microsoft's. So, in
exchange for costly technical support and other blandishments, Microsoft induced dozens of
important ISVs to make their Java applications reliant on Windows-specific technologies and to
refrain from distributing to Windows users JVMs that complied with Sun's standards. The
record contains no evidence that the relevant provision in the First Wave agreements had any
purpose other than to maximize the difficulty of porting Java applications between Windows and
other platforms. Microsoft remained free to hold the First Wave ISVs to this provision until a
court enjoined its enforcement in November 1998.
402. In addition to the First Wave agreements, Microsoft entered an agreement with at
least one ISV that explicitly required it to redistribute Microsoft's JVM to the exclusion of any
other and to rely upon Microsoft's native methods to the exclusion of any other methods. Such
agreements were also prohibited by the November 1998 injunction.
403. Microsoft anticipated that the Java language would become a popular medium in
the multimedia arena. It thus wanted to ensure that the Java software created to deliver
multimedia content would not rely on Java implementations that fostered portability.
RealNetworks developed the most popular software for the creation and play-back of streaming
multimedia content. Therefore, Microsoft sought to ensure that, to the extent Java developers
relied on RealNetworks' technologies, they would not be relying on a Java implementation that
complied with Sun's standards. So, in the July 18, 1997 agreement that it entered with
RealNetworks, Microsoft conditioned its agreement to distribute RealNetworks' media player
with Internet Explorer on RealNetworks' agreement to exert its best efforts to ensure that its
player primarily use Windows-specific technology, rather than any analogous interfaces that Sun
or Netscape might develop, to display multimedia content. Absent this obligation, there would
have been no technical reason why RealNetworks could not have designed its media player to
support both Microsoft's technologies and ones developed by Sun or Netscape. Although
RealNetworks subsequently announced that it planned to continue developing its own
fundamental streaming software, the July 18 agreement limited the extent to which that software
would include Java technologies that complied with Sun's standards.
- Thwarting the Expansion of the Java Class Libraries
404. As discussed above, Microsoft's effort to lock developers into its Windows-
specific Java implementation included actions designed to discourage developers from taking
advantage of Java class libraries such as RMI. Microsoft went further than that, however. In
pursuit of its goal of minimizing the portability of Java applications, Microsoft took steps to
thwart the very creation of cross-platform Java interfaces. The incorporation of greater
functionality into the Java class libraries would have increased the portability of the applications
that relied on them, while simultaneously encouraging developers to use Sun-compliant
implementations of Java. In one instance of this effort to stunt the growth of the Java class
libraries, Microsoft used threats to withhold Windows operating-system support from Intel's
microprocessors and offers to include Intel technology in Windows in order to induce Intel to
stop aiding Sun in the development of Java classes that would support innovative multimedia
functionality.
405. In November 1995, Microsoft's Paul Maritz told a senior Intel executive that
Intel's optimization of its multimedia software for Sun's Java standards was as inimical to
Microsoft as Microsoft's support for non-Intel microprocessors would be to Intel. It was not
until 1997, though, that Microsoft prevailed upon Intel to not support Sun's development of Java
classes that would have allowed developers to include certain multimedia features in their Java
applications without sacrificing portability.
406. In February 1997, one of Intel's competitors, called AMD, solicited support from
Microsoft for its "3DX" technology, which provided sophisticated multimedia support for
games. Microsoft's Allchin asked Gates whether Microsoft should support 3DX, despite the fact
that Intel would oppose it. Gates responded: "If Intel has a real problem with us supporting this
then they will have to stop supporting Java Multimedia the way they are. I would gladly give up
supporting this if they would back off from their work on JAVA which is terrible for Intel."
Near the end of March, Allchin sent another message to Gates and Maritz. In it he wrote, "I am
positive that we must do a direct attack on Sun (and probably Oracle). . . . Between ourselves and
our partners, we can certainly hurt their (certainly Sun's) revenue base. . . . We need to get Intel
to help us. Today, they are not." Two months later, Eric Engstrom, a Microsoft executive with
responsibility for multimedia development, wrote to his superiors that one of Microsoft's goals
was getting "Intel to stop helping Sun create Java Multimedia APIs, especially ones that run well
(ie native implementations) on Windows." Engstrom proposed achieving this goal by offering
Intel the following deal: Microsoft would incorporate into the Windows API set any multimedia
interfaces that Intel agreed to not help Sun incorporate into the Java class libraries. Engstrom's
efforts apparently bore fruit, for he testified at trial that Intel's IAL subsequently stopped helping
Sun to develop class libraries that offered cutting-edge multimedia support.
- The Effect of Microsoft's Efforts to Prevent Java from Diminishing the
Applications Barrier to Entry
407. Had Microsoft not been committed to protecting and enhancing the applications
barrier to entry, it might still have developed a high-performance JVM and enabled Java
developers to call upon Windows APIs. Absent this commitment, though, Microsoft would not
have taken efforts to maximize the difficulty of porting Java applications written to its
implementation and to drastically limit the ability of developers to write Java applications that
would run in both Microsoft's version of the Windows runtime environment and versions
complying with Sun's standards. Nor would Microsoft have endeavored to limit Navigator's
usage share, to induce ISVs to neither use nor distribute non-Microsoft Java technologies, and to
impede the expansion of the Java class libraries, had it not been determined to discourage
developers from writing applications that would be easy to port between Windows and other
platforms. Microsoft's dedication to the goal of protecting the applications barrier to entry is
highlighted by the fact that its efforts to create incompatibility between its JVM and others
resulted in fewer applications being able to run on Windows than otherwise would have.
Microsoft felt it was worth obstructing the development of Windows-compatible applications
where those applications would have been easy to port to other platforms. It is not clear whether,
absent Microsoft's interference, Sun's Java efforts would by now have facilitated porting
between Windows and other platforms enough to weaken the applications barrier to entry. What
is clear, however, is that Microsoft has succeeded in greatly impeding Java's progress to that end
with a series of actions whose sole purpose and effect were to do precisely that.
VII.
THE EFFECT ON CONSUMERS OF MICROSOFT'S EFFORTS TO PROTECT
THE APPLICATIONS BARRIER TO ENTRY
408. The debut of Internet Explorer and its rapid improvement gave Netscape an
incentive to improve Navigator's quality at a competitive rate. The inclusion of Internet
Explorer with Windows at no separate charge increased general familiarity with the Internet and
reduced the cost to the public of gaining access to it, at least in part because it compelled
Netscape to stop charging for Navigator. These actions thus contributed to improving the quality
of Web browsing software, lowering its cost, and increasing its availability, thereby benefitting
consumers.
409. To the detriment of consumers, however, Microsoft has done much more than
develop innovative browsing software of commendable quality and offer it bundled with
Windows at no additional charge. As has been shown, Microsoft also engaged in a concerted
series of actions designed to protect the applications barrier to entry, and hence its monopoly
power, from a variety of middleware threats, including Netscape's Web browser and Sun's
implementation of Java. Many of these actions have harmed consumers in ways that are
immediate and easily discernible. They have also caused less direct, but nevertheless serious and
far-reaching, consumer harm by distorting competition.
410. By refusing to offer those OEMs who requested it a version of Windows without
Web browsing software, and by preventing OEMs from removing Internet Explorer or even
the most obvious means of invoking it prior to shipment, Microsoft forced OEMs to ignore
consumer demand for a browserless version of Windows. The same actions forced OEMs either
to ignore consumer preferences for Navigator or to give them a Hobson's choice of both browser
products at the cost of increased confusion, degraded system performance, and restricted
memory. By ensuring that Internet Explorer would launch in certain circumstances in Windows
98 even if Navigator were set as the default, and even if the consumer had removed all
conspicuous means of invoking Internet Explorer, Microsoft created confusion and frustration for
consumers, and increased technical support costs for business customers. Those Windows
purchasers who did not want browsing software businesses, or parents and teachers, for
example, concerned with the potential for irresponsible Web browsing on PC systems not
only had to undertake the effort necessary to remove the visible means of invoking Internet
Explorer and then contend with the fact that Internet Explorer would nevertheless launch in
certain cases; they also had to (assuming they needed new, non-browsing features not available
in earlier versions of Windows) content themselves with a PC system that ran slower and
provided less available memory than if the newest version of Windows came without browsing
software.
By constraining the freedom of OEMs to implement certain software programs in the
Windows boot sequence, Microsoft foreclosed an opportunity for OEMs to make Windows PC
systems less confusing and more user-friendly, as consumers desired. By taking the actions
listed above, and by enticing firms into exclusivity arrangements with valuable inducements that
only Microsoft could offer and that the firms reasonably believed they could not do without,
Microsoft forced those consumers who otherwise would have elected Navigator as their browser
to either pay a substantial price (in the forms of downloading, installation, confusion, degraded
system performance, and diminished memory capacity) or content themselves with Internet
Explorer.
Finally, by pressuring Intel to drop the development of platform-level NSP software,
and otherwise to cut back on its software development efforts, Microsoft deprived consumers of
software innovation that they very well may have found valuable, had the innovation been
allowed to reach the marketplace. None of these actions had pro-competitive justifications.
411. Many of the tactics that Microsoft has employed have also harmed consumers
indirectly by unjustifiably distorting competition. The actions that Microsoft took against
Navigator hobbled a form of innovation that had shown the potential to depress the applications
barrier to entry sufficiently to enable other firms to compete effectively against Microsoft in the
market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. That competition would have conduced to
consumer choice and nurtured innovation. The campaign against Navigator also retarded
widespread acceptance of Sun's Java implementation.
This campaign, together with actions that
Microsoft took with the sole purpose of making it difficult for developers to write Java
applications with technologies that would allow them to be ported between Windows and other
platforms, impeded another form of innovation that bore the potential to diminish the
applications barrier to entry. There is insufficient evidence to find that, absent Microsoft's
actions, Navigator and Java already would have ignited genuine competition in the market for
Intel-compatible PC operating systems. It is clear, however, that Microsoft has retarded, and
perhaps altogether extinguished, the process by which these two middleware technologies could
have facilitated the introduction of competition into an important market.
412. Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft's actions have conveyed to
every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct
toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its
prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing
initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products. Microsoft's
past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies
and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some
innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not
coincide with Microsoft's self-interest.
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__________/s/_________
Thomas Penfield Jackson
U.S. District Judge
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Date: November 5, 1999
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