Gates was stunned by the content displayed by the browser, from text to images, then to sound and video.
All these carriers of information could be presented by the browser.
"A formidable competitor is being born on the Internet," was the first thought that popped into Gates' head.
The reason Microsoft could control the entire microcomputer industry lay in the fact that it controlled the interface through which people used computers—the operating system.
Now the browser controlled the interface to the Internet, which meant that if Microsoft could not take it back, it would be at the mercy of others on the Internet in the future.
Gates didn't care about Netscape, the company that developed this browser, but rather the entire application ecosystem supported by the product itself.
Its standards would cover almost every computer, and other software would likely use these standards in the future.
