bundling

Computer industry practice of selling different, often unrelated, products in a single package. Bundles may consist of hardware or software or both; for example, a printer or a selection of software may be bundled with a personal computer to make the purchase of the computer seem more attractive.

Retailers may use bundling as a marketing tactic to promote the good being given away, or it can be used to encourage consumers to use the retailer's product instead of a competitor's. Microsoft bundled its Web browser software, Internet Explorer, with its Windows operating system. This was to encourage the use of Explorer as opposed to the browser of Microsoft's then-principal competitor, Netscape. Using bundling in this way may fall foul of anticompetition legislation.