IF MICROSOFT’S HEGEMONY over the tech industry was broken by the end of the decade, the only meaningful casualty of this structural earthquake was Netscape. The antitrust trial was, of course, not designed to save the fortunes of Netscape; the parties involved in the trial were the U.S. government and Microsoft. Netscape was just the star witness, the primary victim. And by the end of the trial, Netscape was not even an independent party anyway. On November 24, 1998, America Online announced it was purchasing Netscape for $4.2 billion in stock.
