The actual thing that Microsoft got in trouble for was technical and legal restrictions Microsoft put in place, especially on OEM/hardware manufacturers, to prevent prebundling of the paid Netscape product.

This is very similar to how Google lost against Epic on it's "open" Android, while Apple (mostly) won https://www.theverge.com/24003500/epic-v-google-loss-apple-w...

Interestingly enough - the one point Apple lost on in the Epic case is exactly what they're being fined for by the EU.

Also, you could have developed whatever you wanted, but made an active choice to try to extinguish those applications with OEMs, ISPs, and content providers to squeeze out Netscape. It's truly lost on people today how Bill Gates was an absolute killer back in the day.

    > How? Just like Apple, Microsoft was only being mean spirited to SW and HW vendors and competitors, not to consumers.

Didn't stop you from selling your SW for the Windows platform without paying Microsoft a dime or Microsoft having any way to stop you. Look at WinRar or the thousands of other small companies who made a living selling SW for Windows without paying Microsoft a cent.

>The consumer experience for iPhone users is much better than that of Windows users back in the day.

UX is subjective and debatable. And there's a difference between one having poor UX, and one being "mean spirited towards users".

Microsoft would charge you up-front for things like dev tools (Visual Studio), documentation (MSDN), server software (MS SQL, Windows Server), etc. Yeah, you could get alternatives, but it wasn't until the very end of the 90s that you started to see FOSS really take off in a way that would be appropriate for an enterprise-style environment.

App stores take a cut of revenue, while Microsoft would get its revenue before your project shipped.

    > Didn't stop you from selling your SW for the Windows platform without paying Microsoft a dime or Microsoft having any way to stop you. 

But did Microsoft take their money like Apple does today?

The internet and shareware distributions was also a thing back then, where you get the SW for free from anywhere, and send a payment to the developer and received an activation key over the phone/post.

Something that is a surefire success in one platform is not necessarily a surefire success in another. Which is why saying in hindsight "this is monopolistic behavior!" is such a silly thing to do.

If I'm not mistaken you also had to pay to redistribute or link to system libraries so yeah, you had to pay a pretty penny to play.

The EU always seems to be the one doing the work with this sort of regulation. Maybe the evil solution is just: avoid anti-competitive behavior in the EU.

And this article is about the EU where iOS is less than 40% and Apple Music is less than 10%

All the PCs I bought in 90's Europe came without Windows OS preinstalled. What you're talking about it the deals between Microsoft and the likes of Dell/HP/Compaq, etc, but nobody forced you to buy those brands as there were plenty of other local assembled alternatives without OS in the shops back then.

Please stop making up arguments that are not in good faith.

The reply was that there were other computers sold in Europe by the non big brands that did not include Windows.

You could not in fact run the “same” Windows software if you were not running Windows

Sure they can. You can install free emulators on Android, can't you? Just side-load it, and Bob's your uncle.