Microsoft has created all kinds of standards for the computer software industry in todays world. Competing technologies can coexist in todays society, without the need for standards set by an external body or by a separate company such as Microsoft. Give the example of the home video cassette industry of the late 1970s. The battle between the VHS and Beta Video formats, VHS won not because it was a superior product, but because it was more successfully marketed. Buying an operating system for a computer is nothing at all like purchasing a VCR, because the operating system of a computer defined that computers personality, whereas a VCRs only function is to play movies.The development of camcorders have been the introduction of many new formats for video tapes that are all being used at once. VHS-C and 8mm formats all are coexisting together in the camcorder market, showing that maybe in our society today we are not in need of one standard. Maybe we can get along just as well with more than one standard. Along the same lines there are quite a few other industries that can get along without one standard. Take for instance the automobile industry. If you accepted the idea that one standard was best for everyone involved, then you would never be tempted to purchase a BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, Saab, or Porsche automobile. Due to the fact that these cars all have less then one percent market share in the automobile industry and therefore will never be standards.Probably the biggest proponent of government intervention into the Microsoft issue is Netscape Communications, based out of Mountain View, California. Netscape has filed law suits accusing Microsoft of tying again. Microsoft is going through their World Wide Web browser, Internet Explorer 3.0 into their operating system Windows 95. Netscape is the maker of Netscape Navigator currently the most widely used Internet browser on the market, and now facing some fierce competition from Microsoft...
