Key Dates In Microsoft Case
Key dates in the antitrust investigation of Microsoft Corp., the largest maker of personal computer software:
1975 Microsoft founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates, friends who had co-written a programming language for the Altair hobby-kit personal computer a year earlier.
1980 IBM selects Microsoft to create operating system for its first PC. The software, which runs the machine's basic functions, is called MS-DOS.
1991 Federal Trade Commission begins to investigate claims that Microsoft monopolizes the market for PC operating systems.
1993 The FTC deadlocks on two votes to file a formal complaint against Microsoft and decides to close the investigation. Justice Department and European Commission antitrust investigators begin independent probes.
July 1994 Microsoft in a consent decree agrees to change contracts with PC makers and eliminate some restrictions on other software makers, ending the U.S. antitrust investigation. The Europeans also end their antitrust probe.
August 1995 Microsoft launches Windows 95.
November 1995 Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 2.0 for Windows 95, giving it away for free in a challenge to Netscape's competing Navigator.
December 1995 Gates details shift in Microsoft strategy to focus on the Internet, closely weaving PCs with the public computer network.
September 1997 Microsoft launches Internet Explorer 4.0 in stepped-up challenge to Netscape, whose share of browser market slips to less than two-thirds of Internet users.
October 1997 Justice Department sues Microsoft, alleging Microsoft violated the 1994 consent decree by forcing computer makers to use its Internet browser as a condition of selling its popular Windows operating software.
Dec. 11, 1997 U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in Washington, D.C., issues preliminary injunction forcing Microsoft to stop, at least temporarily, requiring manufacturers who sell Windows 95 "or any successor" to install its Internet Explorer on PCs.
Dec. 15, 1997 Microsoft appeals court order but says it will sell modified versions of Windows to comply with preliminary injunction.
Jan. 14, 1998 Judge rejects Microsoft's effort to remove Harvard University law professor Lawrence Lessig as a court-appointed "special master" to review technical issues in the dispute. Microsoft claimed the professor was biased, citing his electronic mail correspondence with Microsoft rival Netscape Communications. Microsoft appeals judge's ruling.
March 3, 1998 Gates and other top technology executives testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose members ask Gates about monopoly power and restrictive licenses with computer makers.
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