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After Microsoft had nuked the rest of the computer industry into submission with Win95, they followed up with MS Office, a tool of enslavement more effective than the ball & chain. Leveraging its dominant position in the industry, Microsoft forced every major PC manufacture to bundle Win95 with all the systems they sold. Then they marketed Office95 with a fury that would have put Macbeth to shame. Their relentless effort bore fruit when PC users soon realised that purchasing Office 95 was inevitable as everyone else seemed to have it (in some cases, that was the only reason). And thus began the great reign of terror.
The Internet explosion was started almost single handedly by one company: Netscape. This startup burst onto the scene to wild applause when it created the first web browser. It seemed poised to take over the helm of the hi-tech world from mighty Microsoft until Gates realised that he had misjudged the potential of the Internet, having dismissed it as "nothing but electricity" just months ago. The head microsofties held an emergency all-night meeting at which they mapped out Microsoft's new Internet strategy. From the events that followed, their strategy seems to have been: Kill Netscape, then take over the Internet and buy up anything that gets in our way. In their desperate struggle to stop Netscape in its tracks, Microsoft used the one thing they had lots of: Green stuff. They threw money at the Internet until Netscape caved. To begin with, they hired hundreds of programmers to build a product that could replace Netscape's Navigator. They named their new baby Internet Explorer. When people continued to use Navigator, Microsoft brought out the big guns; they pulled every string available to them in an attempt to force people to use IE over Navigator. First they gave away IE free. Then they forced Compaq, Dell and the other large PC manufacturers to bundle IE with every system they sold, without including Navigator in the package. Then they gave the big Internet access providers, like AOL, a place on the coveted Windows desktop in exchange for their pledge to use IE instead of Navigator. Slowly, IE began to eat away at Netscape's market share, eventually forcing Netscape to give away their browser free as well. But the damage had been done: The company that had given birth to the Web had been reduced to a mere shell of its former self; The story of Microsoft's life.
As the Internet grew, there arose a need for some means of developing software that could run on any computer. A company called Sun Microsystems came to the rescue with a programming language called Java, which promised to allow programmers to develop software that could even be run inside a web page! The greatest assets of Java was that it could be used on any system, not just Windows. This scared the hell out of Microsoft, which had built its empire on strength of the overwhelming popularity of Windows, which had resulted in an armada of applications being developed for it. Gates realized that the success of Java could spell the end of the world's dependence upon Windows. Microsoft swiftly took steps to ensure that Java died a quick death on the altar of fear, uncertainty & doubt. They generated massive confusion throughout the hi-tech world by creating their own flavour of Java, which was easier to use but would only run on Windows, and then pushing it as the best tool for Java development. As a result of these actions, Java has yet to move beyond earshot of the starting line.
Our very own Corel had become a leader in the graphics software market and decided to go head to head with Microsoft in the office productivity software market. It appropriated a group of orphaned applications from several victims of Microsoft and assembled them into a suite that rivalled Microsoft's latest offering, Office 97. Unfortunately, Corel had bet the farm on Java, which had yet to prove itself. When Microsoft put the bolts to Sun Microsystems, Corel felt the pain as well. It has yet to recover from that debacle.