They've reached a settlement equal to a slap on the wrist. They've agreed to share their API with third parties and a couple of people to verify that for a couple of years (it expired in 2007).

So basically nothing.

In legal terms they got off easy, but it did change Microsoft and computing forever. Microsoft became terrified of been seen as monopolistic and that lead to them effectively saving Apple, not buying Google or Yahoo, embracing Linux and so on. It was very much worth it.

"So basically nothing"

Umm..no.

IE could now be un-installed on Windows.

After various settlement fines in the US with several parties, the EU took it further and also leveraged its largest anti-trust penalty of that era. (~1 billion)

Microsoft were forced to share ALL their earlier private computing API's as open specs. MS word, excel formats, SMB, etc. This was amazing and resulting in several OSS libraries.

>>IE could now be un-installed on Windows.

Why is this important?

And I was never able to make it actually work. Like the whole system became much more unstable if you did uninstall IE.

That being said, I didn't know much about computers back then, so I probably messed up somewhere.

Avoiding security vulnerabilities.

Look at how Apple, and to a degree Google, are controlling/constraining mobile apps today and imagine that Microsoft had done that (x10... they were much worse in their time) 20 years earlier on the desktop. They were pretty successful in choking off the growth of Netscape (the browser) and Java pre-DOJ action and would have likely used similar strategies against web companies (which were completely dependent on and at the mercy of the desktop OS back then) before they became large enough to be a competitive threat.

Google exists, for one. Microsoft decided against early attempts to acquire Google or block their toolbar in IE because of the fear of further antitrust legislation.

You think Google would sell to Microsoft? Larry and Sergey are one the smartest founders ever. They had clear vision and mission for Google.

Microsoft was in a position to put Google entirely out of business at the time, and buy it for pennies on the dollar. Internet Explorer was THE dominant browser at the time with over 90 percent market share, and Microsoft was considering blocking the install of Google Toolbar (the vaguely malware-esque add-on Google paid Adobe to inject into Flash Player and Reader installers) and preventing Google from modifying the default search.

Google would not still exist without the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft that scared them into playing it safe.

Also, Larry and Sergey's vision was an academic search engine that wasn't tainted by the mixed motivations of advertising[1]. Since they built the world's largest ad company, it's fair to say they sold out their vision and mission and the first opportunity for a lot of money.

[1] http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html appendix A

Well, they had a clear vision about "organizing the world's information", but ads did not enter the picture until year 2000.

In 1998 they were decidedly anti-ad, but after failing to monetize differently, I guess they caved in.

However, that anti-ad approach and an attempt to avoid the results being gamed with PageRank made hordes of "us" (geeks who were being called in to help others with their "computer problems") to get everybody to switch to Google Search.

But I doubt they planned all of that, especially not to turn their company into an advertising company.

For a while copies of Windows sold in Europe let the user choose which browser would be installed by default during the setup process.

Microsoft's obligation to do this ended in 2014 and now we're back to them begging everyone to use Edge.

Microsoft didn't lose the anti-trust case.

Go check Wikipedia.

They did loose, then they appealed and settled.

Yeah, people should start treating, morally, settling just as losing a case. This doesn't apply for individuals, but companies settling for millions and millions are morally admitting defeat. Corporations can afford the drawn out court battles, so if they're not continuing them, it means that they're admitting they lost.

no, people should consider settlements on a case-by-case basis depending on the actual terms. entities settle totally unfounded suits all the time just because it's cheaper than taking them to court. just because a giant corporation could afford to doesn't mean settling isn't a rational choice.

Settlements are a win because they don't set precedent, and are often much cheaper than going to trial, and much, much cheaper than losing. There are plenty of companies that skirt the law or civil agreements hoping that, in the worst case, they can just settle if they're brought to court.

I think European court system is not based on precedents, so while someone can point at any particular ruling in another case, it shouldn't affect ruling in their own case.

IANAL though :)

Applies in the UK, though, we got our case law system from them.