Why did microsoft get sued and why isn't anyone suing apple?

Microsoft got sued for having internet explorer in their OS.
but what did Microsoft do wrong? back then internet explorer was the only browser, and you can freely get any other browser anyways. I admit internet explorer is a crapy browser, but what reason is there for a company being forced to promote products from rival companies?

Now look at apple:
Purposely blocking flash, ok maybe flash would have some problems.
So adobe wrote a new program that converts flash code into iPhone code.
Now apple blocks that also, clearly shutting out the rival and make the rival waste so much money to make a product that apple won't allow them to use.

All apple apps must be approved by apple while all desktop programs are not approved by microsoft.
Just why?

Short answer: Because Microsoft was a monopoly and Apple is not.

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Short answer: Because Microsoft was a monopoly and Apple is not.

I'm tempted to say that's wrong. [/color]

Actually, correct me if I'm wrong, but this has to do with the fact that a PC is like...a non-patented item? The OS was a choice made by the user, and the browser should of been too.

In contrast, the i-phone is still Apple's property and they can do whatever they wish.

I might be dreadfully wrong here, but I remember a documentary stating that the last thing Apple wanted was to have I-pod be synonymous with MP3 players (Which was/is close to happening), because then they would lose that ability.

Short answer: Because Microsoft was a monopoly and Apple is not.

Actually that's a lot of it. When microsoft was sued they had an overwhelming majority of the broswer share, and with IE being so tied into the OS of most computers sold, there was very little room for other browsers to maneuver.

I think the key word is Apple hasn't been sued _yet_. They are no where near as big as Microsoft was in the computing/browser market. So them ignoring flash isn't going to kill flash as there are plenty of other devices/os's etc that can and will use it.

Short answer: Because Microsoft was a monopoly and Apple is not.

Why is this? Nothing stopped you from installing another browser. And Microsoft getting sued because including THEIR SOFTWARE with THEIR OS? Blashemy! I think Google should be sued, too. I want a Search engine choice screen the next time I see google.

See? Bull.

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I'm tempted to say that's wrong. [/color]

It's right.

The evidence gathered during the investigation leads the Commission to believe that the tying of Internet Explorer with Windows, which makes Internet Explorer available on 90% of the world's PCs, distorts competition on the merits between competing web browsers insofar as it provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match.

Whereas Apple does not, at all, allow developers to use any programming language apart from C and JS. This includes conversion from, say, Python to C, or Clojure to C, or Flash. You're strictly speaking not even allowed to make pseudocode of the app you're making, nor allowing to simulate anything. That's why flash is not allowed (You cannot make a turing-complete thing. You're not allowed to make the Game of Life. Heh.).

But keep in mind, Apple has never shutted anyone out: They're actually doing the opposite with their Appstore.

What you're bothered about is that it is legal for Apple to write in their TOS that:

3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

It's stupid though, imo.

"The evidence gathered during the investigation leads the Commission to believe that the tying of Internet Explorer with Windows, which makes Internet Explorer available on 90% of the world's PCs, distorts competition on the merits between competing web browsers insofar as it provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match."

That's not really an evidence.
You have to take into consideration that IE is the earliest browser, thus more people use it. Microsoft was the biggest tech company, everyone would obviously trust microsoft's brand more.
It is possible Internet Explorer would still gained 90% PC share without it being bundled with windows.

Just look at google, it's not bundled with anything, there's yahoo, ask, and now bing. All the search engines have similiar performance, it's only the fact that google was first in the market that makes it have 90% of the market share.
The same could be said about IE. It's true through advanced javascript test other browsers are much faster. but to the user, it's no difference. (In fact some of my friends I've recommended FF to says they still prefer IE, since IE takes 1 second to start up while FF takes 5 seconds. And they constantly get the "firefox is already running" when they reopen the browser very fast, which is a habit of IE users) User wouldn't see much of a difference when a website loads in 0.5 second or 0.05 second.

Now what about the number of songs apple's itune have sold? all apple products requires you to install iTune, isn't that a monopoly?

The problem wasn't just the marketshare that MSIE had at the time, but also that the operating system REQUIRED you to use MSIE to download updates for Windows. If you disabled MSIE, you couldn't get updates as the web engine needed MSIE for its use. This meant that many other users didn't want to get any other browsers because why have two browsers? Also, you had to have some sort of MSIE client running at all times because MSIE was built into explorer.exe. This made running other browsers a hassle because the default one for Windows was ALWAYS MSIE and it was ridiculously hard to switch it.

Apple is not doing the same thing. Their updates are not tied to Safari, and you can use any browser you want. You'll notice that in Vista and Windows 7 Microsoft no longer requires you to use MSIE for updates and allows you to easily switch from one browser to another.

Google is not doing the same thing as Microsoft because you have a choice whether to use their search engine or not. With XP you did not have a choice which browser you could use. This was Microsoft forcing you to use their browser with their system and limited the choice of its users.

"The evidence gathered during the investigation leads the Commission to believe that the tying of Internet Explorer with Windows, which makes Internet Explorer available on 90% of the world's PCs, distorts competition on the merits between competing web browsers insofar as it provides Internet Explorer with an artificial distribution advantage which other web browsers are unable to match."

That's not really an evidence.
You have to take into consideration that IE is the earliest browser, thus more people use it. Microsoft was the biggest tech company, everyone would obviously trust microsoft's brand more.
It is possible Internet Explorer would still gained 90% PC share without it being bundled with windows.

That's possible, however that's not what the statement is saying. It's saying that bundled in the OS it has an unfair distribution advantage to all the other browsers. If you could choose at startup which browser you wanted to be installed with your os, then there wouldn't be a monopoly. The fact of the matter is because IE is there all the time with no other option without additional work by the user, its browser is distributed not by merit but by default.

Just look at google, it's not bundled with anything, there's yahoo, ask, and now bing. All the search engines have similiar performance, it's only the fact that google was first in the market that makes it have 90% of the market share.

That would be quetionable to. In fact I'm willing to go so far to say that google has far superior performance. Being in web marketing if I put new information on my website, typically within a week google has crawled/indexed/ranked and has started returning organic search results based on said term/information. The results you get from google are far more up to date and current than any other search engine. The same information can take up to 6 months for me to get ranked reasonably on the other search engines. In addition, the algorithm is so advanced that it can consider context and return results based on what you mean rather than what you type.

The same could be said about IE. It's true through advanced javascript test other browsers are much faster. but to the user, it's no difference. (In fact some of my friends I've recommended FF to says they still prefer IE, since IE takes 1 second to start up while FF takes 5 seconds. And they constantly get the "firefox is already running" when they reopen the browser very fast, which is a habit of IE users) User wouldn't see much of a difference when a website loads in 0.5 second or 0.05 second.

The same would be said for IE if there were the option right up front to use other browsers. It would be used by basis of merit, and quality rather than default. Additionally, prior to Windows Vista, IE was required for windows update. You had no choice in the matter. edit: Fiel Snipe on the last bit.

Just look at google, it's not bundled with anything, there's yahoo, ask, and now bing. All the search engines have similiar performance, it's only the fact that google was first in the market that makes it have 90% of the market share.

Google weren't the first. They were simply better at doing searches than anyone else.

The same could be said about IE. It's true through advanced javascript test other browsers are much faster. but to the user, it's no difference. (In fact some of my friends I've recommended FF to says they still prefer IE, since IE takes 1 second to start up while FF takes 5 seconds. And they constantly get the "firefox is already running" when they reopen the browser very fast, which is a habit of IE users) User wouldn't see much of a difference when a website loads in 0.5 second or 0.05 second.

Just to point it out, it's not about quality. It's about what Fiel elaborated.

Now what about the number of songs apple's itune have sold? all apple products requires you to install iTune, isn't that a monopoly?

Amount of songs sold on iTunes are irrelevant. And I've installed QuickTime (AND uninstalled it, mind you) without installing iTunes.

Just look at google, it's not bundled with anything, there's yahoo, ask, and now bing. All the search engines have similiar performance, it's only the fact that google was first in the market that makes it have 90% of the market share.

Google wasn't the first search engine. It's one of the first to have initial success though.
http://www.searchenginehistory.com/#early-engines

If you're referring to the 2000 court case, Microsoft "kind of" won that case.

Microsoft got sued for having internet explorer in their OS.
but what did Microsoft do wrong? back then internet explorer was the only browser, and you can freely get any other browser anyways. I admit internet explorer is a crapy browser, but what reason is there for a company being forced to promote products from rival companies?

MSIE the first browser?

No, no, Netscape was the first widely spread modern internet browser, MSIE was developed a few years later (total Netscape ripoff, but ok...), when finally Bill Gates had to admit he was wrong when he claimed the internet wasn't a big thing. Then Microsoft started their very aggressive campaign to let everyone switch to their browser and Netscape collapsed a few years after that. Mozilla Firefox is a totally redesigned version of the Netscape browser btw...

Anyway for nostalgia:

Now look at apple:
Purposely blocking flash, ok maybe flash would have some problems.
So adobe wrote a new program that converts flash code into iPhone code.
Now apple blocks that also, clearly shutting out the rival and make the rival waste so much money to make a product that apple won't allow them to use.

All apple apps must be approved by apple while all desktop programs are not approved by microsoft.
Just why?

Apple used to be a small innocent company some years ago, now they're growing bigger and bigger, and more greedy by the day, just wait... Apple will get it's share of mass criticism one day, I think it already started with the iPad ("oh noes, not another iThingy for more ca$h").

Just wait a few years, things will change for them too.