Microsoft was actively creating patches that broke other browsers, and offering discounts to prevent companies like Dell from selling competing operating systems. That's a little more than some advertising.
Just picture it, run Microsoft update Chrome and Firefox break now what?
>Microsoft was actively creating patches that broke other browsers
Do you realize there wasn't a official specs set at that time? Different browsers came up with "patches"/features own there own. From the blink tag to Ajax, all were proprietary to each browser.
>offering discounts to prevent companies like Dell from selling competing operating systems.
Isn't that what Google is doing with android too?
>Just picture it, run Microsoft update Chrome and Firefox break now what?
I don't believe it ever happened or ever will. If Microsoft had to go that route, they would have done it before losing the biggest chunk of the browser share.
Do you realize there wasn't a official specs set at that time? Different browsers came up with "patches"/features own there own. From the blink tag to Ajax, all were proprietary to each browser.
I don't believe it ever happened or ever will. If Microsoft had to go that route, they would have done it before losing the biggest chunk of the browser share.
Retric wasn't talking about patches to IE, but rather patches to the OS that would break third-party applications (they did this to Word Perfect during the transition from DOS to Windows, too). You can all about Microsoft's colorful past in the so-called Halloween Documents, the press coverage and public documentation of the main antitrust case, and in other cases such as those documented on Groklaw.
>offering discounts to prevent companies like Dell from selling competing operating systems.
Isn't that what Google is doing with android too?
Can't say much about the rest of your comment, but I'm pretty sure Google wasn't trying to "prevent companies like [LG/Samsung/HTC] from selling competing operating systems." Apple doesn't sell iOS to other hardware manufacturers, and the other modern smartphone operating systems didn't exist when Google open-sourced Android.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has attempted to coerce vendors into selling Windows Phone smartphones by threatening them with patent suits.
Just picture it, run Microsoft update Chrome and Firefox break now what?