While maintaining control of the computer operating system and crushing Netscape may have been important to Microsoft, the real stake in this battle is for control of transactions on the Internet. Certainly any capitalist would drool over the prospects of controlling the Internet. Banks and stockbrokers are moving many of their operations to the Internet. Commerce and other financial transactions are being completely restructured globally by the Internet. There is also the server side.
Servers are the computers that store and transmit the Web pages that browsers request.
The Microsoft Web server has about 20 percent of the market. Anyone can download it over the Internet, compile it and use it without having to pay a fee to any person or company. Apache is so good, in fact, that IBM agreed to make public some of its internal modifications to Apache in return for the right to distribute it to all of IBM's customers. The software structure of the Internet is the product of this volunteer labor. Companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems, which make the bulk of their money off selling computers, have striven mightily to preserve their position while at the same time making big bucks selling specialized hardware and services needed to set up a Web site.