Microsoftus leveragus logicielis
The butterfly can negotiate 180° bends
In 1994, when the American public began connecting en
masse to Internet and the rest of the world was just starting
to get connected, MSN, long convinced by the development
of computer networks (or information highways), was defending
its own network at all costs. The new version of its system,
Windows 95, originally proposed a connection kit to its
own Microsoft Network (MSN). This advantage should have
allowed it to catch up and overtake the competing networks,
America on Line (AOL), Compuserve, Prodigy, Eworld (Apple)
or the French Calvacom. That year, everyone thought that
private networks would control the information society,
Microsoft among them, who swore by the Microsoft Network,
which was infinitely more organised and easy to access
than Internet. But the users didn't agree, and pretty
soon Microsoft had to rethink its strategy completely,
if it wasn't to miss out on the Internet revolution. Bill
Gates knew that his company could lose its position as
market leader in a matter of a few years. He remembered
that ten years earlier, IBM didn't see the change coming
to micro-computers, and stuck with its big systems, a
decision for which it is still paying the price today.
But Microsoft organised itself for battle, and since its
clients wanted Internet, Bill Gates gave the order in
December 1995 : MSN was abandoned, and from now on all
its products must include Internet : online updates, the
creation of new Internet functions, managing bank accounts
online for Money, the personal finance software, and the
development of a browser software which would soon become
as effective as its competitor, Netscape Navigator.
But Microsoft, which wanted to be omnipresent
on the information superhighway, launched into a buying
spree : WebTV, the Internet access system by television,
Hotmail, the market leader of free e-mail, Firefly, for
its search agents, and shares in the cable operators (who
launched high-bandwidth Internet access in 1995) http://www.wbtv.com,
http://www.hotmail.com,
http://www.firefly.com.
The content is also one of the basic elements of its Internet
strategy. MSN Start is the portal site which links the
other elements : Expedia, which specialises in selling
tourist products, Carpoint, for car sales, Webbuilder
(a community of computer developers). The regional guides
prove Microsoft's concern for proximity.
Finally, Microsoft adopted a policy of technological
globalization: the development of a browser software,
exchange standards such as OFX for the financial world,
Website servers (MS site server) for Intranet or electronic
commerce, its own new technologies like Active X, which
is totally incompatible with Netscape, inclusion of a
browser with Windows 98, Teledesic (Internet access by
low-orbit satellite network), Windows CE (a lightweight
operating system for palmtop computers) http://www.teledesic.com
Just to be sure, Microsoft invested its warspoils widely
and now controls a significant part of Internet's access,
content, technology and physical infrastructure. It can
therefore reach the world of electronic commerce at all
levels : via its own online stores, through the technology
which allows any business to create them, and by directly
contacting all the subscribers who connect to Internet
via their desktop computer, their portable, their television
or their palmtop.
next: A 23-year-old butterfly
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