Originally posted by AMD_Forever:
I was told that microsoft released IE to crush Netscape. When I asked why microsoft would do that, I was told it was because Netscape supported Java, and Microsoft didn't want java to succeed so they decided to make a free browser just to crush a programming language. Is that true?
The combination of Java + Browser can used as an application environment that is independent of the operating system it is running on. Now when you develop an application you need to target it at an operating system. If you can construct applications that target a browser/Java combination you can run that application on any hardware/OS combination that the browser runs on.

A very big reason Microsoft is so successful is that they can use their control of the deployment platform (the OS) to gain an advantage over their competitors in other areas. A perfect example would be how they used Windows 95 to squeeze WordPerfect out of the word processor market.

I have no doubt that MS eliminated Netscape in order to keep its control over the application deployment environment. Just look at the history. In five years they have made three separate attempts to undermine Java. ActiveX, the MS virtual Java machine, and recently C#. Not surprisingly, each of these only works on MS products.




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