A copycat named MS

Another instance of MS being the fast and aggressive copycat - and not the innovator.

Flashback: IE 7 will have tabbed browsing capability (the feature I like the most about Firefox).

Back to the present: MS to challenge the iPod. (news.com)


Now, to the story about the bully:

Flashback: Netscape vs. IE or, 'How the bully killed the start-up'

From the WSJ: "Ten years ago, Microsoft used PC makers' reliance on its operating system to block competition from a browser offered by Netscape Communications. Its tactics led to a landmark antitrust suit against the software giant that eventually restrained Microsoft from using its hold on PC software to close out or limit rivals. The ruling granted PC makers greater freedom to pitch non-Microsoft software on the PC's earliest set-up screens."

What the bully does today: "Still, last summer, executives at Google, H-P, Yahoo and other companies started to worry about Microsoft's continuing influence. Early versions of Microsoft's newest web browser, which is due out this year, featured a built-in box for searching the Internet that automatically directed PCs to Microsoft's MSN search service. They feared Microsoft was using the feature to put rival search companies at a disadvantage."

And at a Google-MS meeting to discuss this issue: "Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's browser team, wasn't at the meeting but received a series of text messages from his colleagues who were. "Not sure they're hearing us," read one message describing the Google group, he recalls."

But I guess they're not all bad: "After months of back and forth, Microsoft backed down on some, but not all of the debates. Mr. Hachamovitch recently demonstrated the latest test version of Explorer. The built-in search box features options such as "Get Search Providers" and "Change Search Defaults" that enable users to select search engines from AOL, Ask Jeeves, Google, MSN and Yahoo. "Our overriding principle from the get-go is 'respect user choice,'" he says. "There's no desire to do anything other than that.""