I was surprised and happy when I read this:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/25/google-chrome-flash/

HEADLINE: GOOGLE CHROME now comes with Flash Built In

I had hoped to see Flash and Silverlight players open sources and built into all browsers  instead of as plug-ins.. In fact I had hope that Microsoft would make an agreement with Adobe to offer the same thing in IE 9 as well as offer Silverlight with it.. This would have solved a lot of problems for Microsoft. They could have offered a fully compliant HTML 5 solution with .NET capabilities built-into the browser.. So custom .NET solutions could still be offered in a browser- centric HTML 5 world along with Flash.. So all “legacy” stuff like Silverlight apps, Flash and maybe even browser installable WPF apps (XBAPS) Windows applications could have been installed and be made available transparently 

But could they offer this ?

the United States Microsoft antitrust case in 1998  found that Microsoft had abused its monopoly on operating systems to unfairly dominate the market and eliminate competition. This, together with several bad business decisions on Netscape's part, led to Netscape's defeat by the end of 1998, after which the company was acquired by America Online for USD $4.2 billion. Internet Explorer became the new dominant browser, attaining a peak of about 96% of the web browser usage share during 2002, more than Netscape had at its peak. The oversight into the anti-trust case ends May 12,2011.

Was this unfair competition or just the fact that the internet was growing massively in a short time ? Microsoft had completely integrated the Internet with their OS.. In my opinion the internet was HELD back for about 10-12 years. Is the web browser special ? No it’s just a window that renders HTML and supports internet protocols.

Fall out from the case

Quoting Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars 

“Adding new features instead of fixing bugs: A web browser had to have more new features than its competitor, or else it would be considered to be "falling behind." But with limited manpower to put towards development, this often meant that quality assurance suffered and that the software was released with serious bugs..” ..

“Adding proprietary features instead of obeying standards: A web browser is expected to follow the standards set down by standards committees (for example, by adhering to the HTML specifications) in order to assure interoperability of the Web for all users. But competition and innovation led to web browsers "extending" the standards with proprietary features (such as the HTML tags <font>, <marquee>, and <blink>) without waiting for committee approval. Sometimes these extensions produced useful features that were adopted by other browsers, such as the XMLHttpRequest technology that resulted in Ajax. “

“Inadvertently creating security loopholes: In the race to add development features, the line between document and application is crossed, and the Active Content Exploit is born. This is because, whenever applications have been allowed to masquerade as documents (e.g. Master Mode, Office macros, etc.) anyone can slip malicious code into what is otherwise a trustworthy format. As a virus scanner can only detect a virus that is old enough to be catalogued (usually more than 48 hours), it cannot protect against a zero day attack. Thus this blurring of the boundary between application and document creates an easy access point that is the basis for delivery of nearly all of today's drive-by downloads and auto-loading malicious code””

Number two is most interesting because it most likely means even today what I dream of like Flash and Silverlight and .NET custom solutions built into the browser can never happen at least from Microsoft.  Even back in 1998 there was a popular web browser that had both Netscape and IE browser controls built-in so you could view the page rendered in Netscape or IE or both..

Looking back now at a world where the web browser is now dominant and companies like Google are doing things like this that Microsoft aren’t allowed to do, was this judgment really a good ruling that solved the “dominance” issue ? I didn’t really see any changes and it didn’t stop Netscape from dissolving into the Mozilla foundation and AOL.. Or the market share numbers going up with Internet Explorer.

Was the Judgment Effective ?

The oversight into the anti-trust case ends May 12,2011.  According to the Wall Street Journal: “

Most have since been resolved. There will be a few pending technical issues for Microsoft to complete after May 12, but it is "appropriate for final judgments to expire May 12," said Adam Severt, a Justice Department attorney.”

Frankly does this do anything but stop Microsoft from being competitive ? In my opinion, “NO”.. It’s not stopped Microsoft’s dominance,

Bringing the browser into the desktop that they did many years before would have been a great thing if they could have sustained it. Now Google is trying to make the web browser the OS. Is it fair to not let them compete with this directly now ?

. Microsoft no longer tries to be the browser on every platform. In fact it’s not available on Apple devices natively at all.. At the time though IE was on every system including Unix, just not with Active Desktop extensions..

WEB CONTENT INTEGRATION with the OS

HTML pages could also be single or tiled right on our OS desktop, so custom content from one or multiple sites could be on your background.

Today with Windows 7 you are no longer allowed to have HTML as a background (or even movies as you could with Vista).

Many browsers today are encapsulated into controls so you can embed the browser and HTML content right into your own custom software. This includes Webkit, the basis for Apple and Google browsers.

• Embedding Webkit with C#
• Embedding Gecko (Firefox engine) with C#
• Embedding Internet Explorer with C#

Active Desktop at the time gave us NEWS feeds called channels (way ahead of RSS being introduced as a community standard) even though it has it’s roots in Microsoft’s Channel Definition Format. Look at the channel bar to the right, there were a lot of big media companies signed on to deliver content. Many of them are still around today.

Back to the Future

Today RSS (Really Simple Sindication) has supplanted this as a way for “content” feeds to get to you.. Unfortunately not too many people today “brand” logos in RSS feeds like channel definition format allowed for nor do they give you a cool selector mechanism like this did..

Is it unfair to not let Microsoft integrate their own stuff into their browser  and desktop today ?

While I agree it’s unfair to set up a situation where Microsoft doesn’t play well with others, I do also believe they should be able to integrate their .NET technologies directly into the browser as a custom product. With tablets today and popularity of mobile devices, etc. Microsoft is no longer in a position to dictate what the market works with or uses, as seen by Android Phones and tablets and Apple iOS devices. Why shouldn’t Microsoft be now allowed to add it’s custom technology into their browsers ? We now live in a browser centric world where whoever controls the dominant OS doesn’t control web standards Why not let them offer custom solutions in addition to standards based ones now ? Did the ruling really change anything ? Microsoft is still around today, most of the folks bringing the suit aren’t even after they “won”..  It’s obvious the world has went HTML 5 and even if Microsoft were to integrate something like Adobe’s Flash or Silverlight it would be more “legacy” support than anything else and allow .NET custom solutions to stick around longer? 

Seems to me, Microsoft’s ability to innovate is at stake now.. It’s barred from competing on all levels and even being able to integrate Flash into Chrome is something Microsoft couldn’t do.. Let’s allow Microsoft to innovate and keep the legal system who is too slow sometimes understanding the implications of these things stay out of it..

What do you think ?