Court Ruling on Microsoft

Your Dec. 15 editorial, “It’s a Consumer Victory as Court Checks Microsoft,” is misleading when it claims that Microsoft’s strong-arm licensing practices were somehow preventing consumers from using Netscape Navigator or some other non-Microsoft browser.

Vendors could always choose to bundle Netscape along with Internet Explorer, and interested computer users could install it on their own with little trouble. There is nothing about Windows 95, with or without Internet Explorer installed on the desktop, that would prevent either. It would have been more accurate to call the decision a “Netscape victory.” Consumers have gained neither freedom nor economic or technological advantage.

ERIC GAMONAL

Berkeley

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Your contention that the court decision is “a consumer victory” fails to take into account that consumers will pay more for boxed, individually packaged CD-ROM browsers at retail outlets than they would have, had the browser been pre-installed on the computer by a hardware manufacturer that paid Microsoft a bulk-rate licensing fee. (Add to this the time lost visiting a software retailer.)

When I bought my computer in May, on it was pre-installed Internet software for Prodigy, America Online, Planet Oasis and Microsoft Network. The Prodigy software has Netscape’s browser built into it, ready to be activated by starting Prodigy service. The Microsoft Network similarly uses the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. The fact that Packard Bell contracted with Microsoft to pre-install the Windows 95 operating system on the computer did not preclude it from putting in both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

DAVID P. HAYES

Simi Valley