Bill Gates should take a hint from smart sports teams. They work the ref, they try to get the crowd to boo the ref, but they never attack the ref. Microsoft could have handled this matter much differently, and ended up making some innocuous little adjustment. Instead it attacked the ref. Now everybody is mad.
People underestimate the importance of momentum.
If the company doesn't have a back-up version of Win98, if the company can't make a quick switch, there will be enormous ramifications for the computing industry. For hardware makers who need the OS on time to ship their orders on time. For software makers who are building products to Microsoft specs. When we asked Brad Chase, vice president of Microsoft's Internet group, about these dangers he argued that Internet Explorer is the best browser, and OEMs don't want to ship machines without it. He argued that the U.S. government is unreasonable, and Microsoft is doing everything it can to play fair.