The browser wars (1995-2001)
Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer into Windows 95, then 98, killing Netscape Navigator's paid model. The Justice Department sued in 1998. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled in 2000 that Microsoft had abused its OS monopoly to dominate the browser market.
Microsoft avoided a forced breakup on appeal in 2001 but signed a consent decree restricting how it could bundle software with Windows.
The decree shaped two decades of antitrust caution at Microsoft and gave Google room to launch Chrome in 2008. The browser became the platform Microsoft tried and failed to control.
Build 2026 is Microsoft running the same play with agents. Bundle the runtime into Windows, ship it via Windows Update, set the default. The agent runtime is the new browser, and the question is whether regulators treat it the same way.
