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Comment by mbateman | Hacker News Reader

I do remember MS of the mid 90s and it's aura of invincibility, but in retrospect it sure looks like that aura was illusory (or highly temporary, which is really the same thing). Even apart from the antitrust suits it seems clear in hindsight, partly due to the examples that you mention, that the market was widening beyond MS's reach.

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Microsoft still has 90% desktop market share. They still have a very big reach. And this was the attitude that got them into a lot of trouble:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

People might not fear Microsoft like they used too, but they still have the knockout punch in them. If you're their competition, never let your guard down with them.

> If you're their competition, never let your guard down with them

I would upvote you a couple more times if I could. And, since you used a fistfight metaphor, allow me to remind you they never entered one without having their brass knuckles ready.

I highly disagree - especially in the browser area, it took many years to break Internet Explorer's total dominance, and the browser is what mattered most to consumers as the Internet became used by more and more everyday people. IE 4/5/6 was a golden era for Microsoft and many corporations are still stuck on IE6 as a base. Fortunately the consumer market is no longer dominated by IE; now that we have at least 4 major browser platforms across all OS's (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) many websites have to be somewhat standards compliant.

I'm just glad they pulled some features out of IE6 because of the anti-trust investigation.

Anyone remember Smart Tags?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft)

MS was basically going to put ads in every page on the Internet via the browser.

And now we have google ads on every page instead.

The fact they are losing the war does nothing to repair the damage they caused.

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