Microsoft&#x27;s actions in bundling a browser and attacking Netscapes various (likely poor) business models in multiple modes had a great deal to do with why and how Netscape started turning out shitty products.<p>This was part of Microsoft&#x27;s strategy from the very beginning.  Look up Andrew Orlowski&#x27;s story &quot;The Canonization of Saint Bill&quot;, in which a former Intel executive recalls an <i>early 1980s</i> meeting with Gates and Ballmer <i>explicitly</i> offering to carve up the IT market in a three-way split between IBM, Intel, and Microsoft.<p>I was in the industry from the late 1980s onward, and saw what and how Microsoft operated.  Testimony and findings of fact from the DoJ case, the Novell case, the SCO vs. IBM case, and others, all paint the same story.<p>And yes, some of the competitors exhibited incompetence or limited vision.  But &quot;DOS ain&#x27;t done until Lotus won&#x27;t run&quot;, and similar variants, are very much part of the history:<p>The strategic side is: ... We put a bullet in the head of our would be competitors on DOS like DRI, Desqview, dos extenders etc.
- Nathan Mhyrvold, Microsoft Corp., May 9, 1989. Business as usual.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.maxframe.com&#x2F;DR&#x2F;Info&#x2F;fullstory&#x2F;factstat.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.maxframe.com&#x2F;DR&#x2F;Info&#x2F;fullstory&#x2F;factstat.html</a>