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27. As the bandwidth available to the average user increases, \"portal\" Web sites, which aggregate Web content and provide services such as search engines, E-mail, and travel reservation systems, could begin to host full lines of the server-based, personal-productivity applications that have begun to appear in small numbers on the Web. If so, increasing numbers of computer users equipped with Web browsers and IAP connections could begin to conduct a significant portion of their computing through these portals. To the extent they might do so, users probably would not regard the Mac OS's limited stock of compatible applications as the major drawback to using an Apple PC system that it is today, and they might be increasingly drawn to network computer systems and information appliances. The variety and ease of use of server-based applications accessible through browsers would have to increase a great deal from today's levels, however, before the total costs of dispensing with an Intel-compatible PC operating system would decline sufficiently to impose a significant constraint on the pricing of those systems. Again, that day is not imminent; for at least the next few years, the overwhelming majority of consumers accessing server-based applications will do so using an Intel-compatible PC system and a browser.

77. The combined efforts of Netscape and Sun threatened to hasten the demise of the applications barrier to entry, opening the way for non-Microsoft operating systems to emerge as acceptable substitutes for Windows. By stimulating the development of network-centric Java applications accessible to users through browser products, the collaboration of Netscape and Sun also heralded the day when vendors of information appliances and network computers could present users with viable alternatives to PCs themselves. Nevertheless, these middleware technologies have a long way to go before they might imperil the applications barrier to entry. Windows 98 exposes nearly ten thousand APIs, whereas the combined APIs of Navigator and the Java class libraries, together representing the greatest hope for proponents of middleware, total less than a thousand. Decision-makers at Microsoft are apprehensive of potential as well as present threats, though, and in 1995 the implications of the symbiosis between Navigator and Sun's Java implementation were not lost on executives at Microsoft, who viewed Netscape's cooperation with Sun as a further reason to dread the increasing use of Navigator.

281. On January 18, 1996, Case arrived at Microsoft's campus with three other AOL executives. During the first meeting, Microsoft described the componentized architecture of Internet Explorer 3.0 that would allow AOL to embed the browsing software into AOL's access software. The AOL executives viewed componentization as a highly attractive feature, because AOL wanted its subscribers to feel they were using an AOL service whether they were viewing proprietary AOL content or browsing content on the Web. In fact, Case and the other AOL representatives told their Microsoft hosts that AOL wanted total control over the \"browser frame\" (the windows in which Web content is displayed) to make it distinctive to AOL. In other words, AOL wanted no menus, dialog boxes, or other visible signs that would alert AOL users to the fact that they were using Web browsing software supplied by a company other than AOL.

289. In return for Microsoft's commitments, AOL agreed to base the proprietary access software of its flagship online service for Windows and the Mac OS on Internet Explorer 3.0 and to update that software as newer versions of Internet Explorer were released. Another provision in the agreement provided that \"AOL and AOL Affiliates will, with respect to Third Party Browsers, exclusively promote, market and distribute, and have promoted, marketed and distributed, Internet Explorer on or for use by subscribers to the AOL Flagship Service.\" Specifically, AOL agreed to ensure that in successive six-month periods, neither the number of copies of non-Microsoft Web browsing software it shipped (through any sub-channel, including GNN), nor the number of new subscribers accessing AOL (including GNN) with non-Microsoft Web browsing software, would exceed fifteen percent of the total number of copies of proprietary access software that AOL distributed through any channel (i.e., through the Windows desktop or otherwise). AOL retained the right to distribute non-Microsoft Web browsing software to subscribers who affirmatively requested it, as long as doing so did not did not raise the relevant shipment quotients above fifteen percent.

299. On November 24, 1998, AOL and Netscape agreed that AOL would acquire Netscape for 4.3 billion dollars' worth of AOL stock. In a related transaction, AOL entered into a three-year strategic alliance with Sun, pursuant to which Sun would develop and market both its and Netscape's server software and would manage the companies' joint efforts in the area of electronic commerce. AOL purchased Netscape not just for its browsing technology, but also for its electronic commerce business, its portal site, its brand recognition, and its talented work force. To the extent AOL was paying for Netscape's browser business, its primary goal was not to compete for user share against Internet Explorer. Rather, AOL was interested in Navigator to the extent that it drove Web traffic to Netscape's popular portal site, NetCenter. AOL was also interested in ensuring that an alternative to Internet Explorer remained viable; it wanted the option of dropping Internet Explorer to retain enough vitality so that it would not be at the mercy of Microsoft for software upon which the success of its online service largely depended. Finally, AOL was interested in keeping Navigator alive in order to ensure that Microsoft did not gain total control over Internet standards.

364. The AdKnowledge data show that Internet Explorer's share of hits to the monitored Web sites rose from twenty percent in January 1997 to forty-nine percent in August 1998 and that Navigator's share fell from seventy-seven to forty-eight percent over the same period. Dividing the change in the respective numbers of Internet Explorer and Navigator hits from the first quarter of 1998 to the third quarter of 1998 by the change in the number of total hits over that same period yields a fifty-seven percent share of incremental browser usage for Internet Explorer and a forty percent share for Navigator. These figures are again consistent with the estimates on which Microsoft and AOL relied internally. 781b155fdc