If I had to guess (without reading the case specifically), it's probably because Microsoft screwed up by forcing OEMs to not install netscape in order to crush them.
It's hard to differentiate 'crapware' from competition, particularly given the context where Microsoft had just leveraged their power over OEMs to crush a competitor.
This still sucks though, a better outcome for users would have been Microsoft being able to require the machines to sell with a clean OS and then allowing OEMs to install software for the user at their request (rather than the OEMs being able to bundle crap for kickbacks).
Somewhat related, apparently the netscape guys went to Redmond and hung up signs around Microsoft's campus mocking them for ignoring the internet. Legend has it Gates saw these and pivoted teams to IE with a focus on crushing Netscape.
Startup talk often discusses how most startups fail not due to competition, but because of internal collapse. Big companies can't compete, innovator's dilemma, etc. There's a lot of truth to that but this is a counter example (and others exist too).
Wildly stupid to antagonize the elephant that's focused on other things to direct all of their resources to destroying you.
> it's probably because Microsoft screwed up by forcing OEMs to not install netscape in order to crush them.
The matter predated the IE / Netscape battle.
The OEMs wanted the ability to yield money off of the desktop for the systems they sell and had been fighting with Microsoft for years to be able to place crap onto Windows when it boots up. The system makers saw dollar signs in being able to sell placement to AOL dial-up and so on. Microsoft used their position to try to keep them from doing that, fearing an inability to control quality for their own product from the first moment the end user begins their experience.
This seems revisionist, and while Sinofsky obviously has some authority on the subject, he likely also has a bias.
The antitrust case was brought by the states because Microsoft's behavior "was not in the public interest." As far as I know, it wasn't just 1 thing. It was the exclusionary licensing (OEMs were forced to pay an "MS Tax" even when they shipped a Linux computer), it was the bundling of IE, and it was their manipulation of their APIs to favor their software.
Plus there was the EU antitrust case that had nothing to do with OEMs.
It's also worth noting that Microsoft defense was...awful? They falsified evidence, they were belligerent/petty. Gates was a particular train wreck (1)
It's hard to differentiate 'crapware' from competition, particularly given the context where Microsoft had just leveraged their power over OEMs to crush a competitor.
This still sucks though, a better outcome for users would have been Microsoft being able to require the machines to sell with a clean OS and then allowing OEMs to install software for the user at their request (rather than the OEMs being able to bundle crap for kickbacks).
Somewhat related, apparently the netscape guys went to Redmond and hung up signs around Microsoft's campus mocking them for ignoring the internet. Legend has it Gates saw these and pivoted teams to IE with a focus on crushing Netscape.
Startup talk often discusses how most startups fail not due to competition, but because of internal collapse. Big companies can't compete, innovator's dilemma, etc. There's a lot of truth to that but this is a counter example (and others exist too).
Wildly stupid to antagonize the elephant that's focused on other things to direct all of their resources to destroying you.