4. (Ch 2.1) Microsoft At The Dawn Of The Internet Era

Summary: Netscape has set the standard and taken the lead. But how long will it last? We take a step backwards in this episode and examine why Microsoft was so dominant at the beginning of the Internet Era. We ask the questions: Did Bill Gates really miss the Internet? And: Was the Information Superhighway and the Internet one and the same thing? And we look back on all the things that were distracting Microsoft at the dawn of the Internet Era.
Bibliography:  Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft; Bank, David, Free Press, 2007  How the Web Was Won: How Bill Gates and His Internet Idealists Transformed the Microsoft Empire; Andrews, Paul; Broadway, 2000 http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/22/business/judge-clears-antitrust-pact-for-microsoft.html  The New New Thing : A Silicon Valley Story; Lewis, Michael; W.W. Norton & Company, 1999 http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/r14/1994/0113/13021.html  How America Got On-Line: Politics, Markets, and the Revolution in Telecommunications; Stone, Alan; M E Sharp Inc., 1997 http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,978216,00.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.02/smith.html?pg=8&topic= http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/12/business/time-warner-s-time-machine-for-future-video.html  Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race to Control Cyberspace; Wallace, James; Wiley, 1998  Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire; Wallace, James and Erickson, Jim; HarperBusiness, 1993  Netscape Time: The Making of the Billion-Dollar Start-Up That Took on Microsoft; Clark, Jim and Edwards, Owen; St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000  The Billionaire Shell Game: How Cable Baron John Malone and Assorted Corporate Titans Invented a Future Nobody Wanted; Davis, L J; Doubleday, 1998  The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway; Auletta, Ken; Random House, 1997 http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984696,00.html http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/07/20/245683/index.htm  Road Ahead, The (Hardcover Version); Gates, Bill and Myhrvold, Nathan; Viking, 1995  The Road Ahead: Completely Revised and Up-to-Date (Paperback version); Gates, Bill and Myhrvold, Nathan; Penguin Books, 1996 Image Credit: LurkerTech.com