But now and then Think Week also gave Gates the time and
space to reposition the corporate supertanker that Microsoft had
become. His seminal "Internet Tidal Wave" memo of May 26,
1995, to Microsoft executives is the best illustration of what Think
Week could spark. The memo was inspired by various material
that employees had sent him. Still, it was Gates who saw the big
picture-"the opportunity challenge," in his geekspeak-even if
he was admittedly late to the challenge. In the memo, Gates rec-
ognized the threat and the hope of the Net, which he declared
"the most important ;Single development to come along since the
IBM PC was introduced in 1981." So from that moment, he "assigned"
the Net "the highest level of importance" to Microsoft.
Most tellingly, he signaled his determination to "match or beat"
the services provided by a Silicon Valley startup called Netscape,
"a competitor 'born' on the Internet" that had a 70% share of the
browser market. Thus began the browser wars, which led to the
squashing ofNetscape's web browser-and U.S. v. Microsoft, the
Justice Department's antitrust suit against the company that was
eventually settled in 2001.