Do You Have a Choice in Surfboards

A detailed Summary of Do You Have a Choice in Surfboards

Who owns the Internet? If you were to ask this question to any person familiar with the World Wide Web they most likely would say that nobody owns the "Net", but in the past few years a major player has stepped onto the Internet scene and they don't want just a piece of it, they want to dominate the whole thing. This ambitious, greed machine is the one and only Microsoft juggernaut. The Microsoft corporation has been known for years as the best operating system manufacturer, having produced the MS-DOS , Windows 3.1 and the incredibly popular Windows 95 operating system platforms and in the past few years have blitzkrieged the Internet scene with their web browser Internet Explorer and their Internet service; The Microsoft Network. The way Microsoft goes about their marketing tactics though could be compared to a craps table using loaded dice: they just do not play fair.

In current issues Microsoft and its president Bill Gates have been at odds with the government over anti-trust laws. In Microsoft's bid to monopolize the Internet browser market, its marketing strategy has been under heavy fire. Microsoft had been forcing computer manufactures to purchase their operating system that

included Internet Explorer, which they were being charged additionally for. This was mainly brought about because Microsoft was very latent on starting in on this market and had to find a way to catch up quickly. In a issue of Mother Jones, G. Pascal Zachary writes "Gates failed to grasp the importance of the Web until Netscape had nearly won the game. Chastened by having to claw his way into Web software, which he now dominates, Gates is unlikely to make this mistake again." What quite a few people consider to be the reason that Internet Explorer usurped Netscape as the dominate Web browser is the fact that Microsoft pushed its browser on the computer manufactures, in turn pushing it onto the consumer. The government has since forced Microsoft to sign a consent decree that made them discontinue packaging their web browser with their operating system. "The consent decree says that Microsoft can't require a computer maker or reseller to buy an application as a condition of getting the OS." writes Jerry Pournelle of Byte. This decree may end up being an example of the cliche, a day late and a dollar short.

In another part of the Internet business, Microsoft's Internet service provider, the Microsoft Network has been taking on customers at a rapid rate. The Microsoft Network was initially limited by the federal government to how many customers it could have, bu

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Approximate Word count = 929
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics