How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 472.22

-1.3%

Nov 21 9:30 AM EST

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To: JBTFD who wrote (33671)	11/10/1999 9:41:00 PM
From: Tom C	Read Replies (2) of 74651

I can speak from a developers point of view, ahh, errr… my point of view as a developer. Let's say I want to build an application that allowed a user to connect to SI, choose a thread and search that thread for a word or phrase. I want the search to start at post no. 1 on the thread and search though every single post ever made on the thread. As the App finds posts with the matching phrase I want it to display the post within the application. I also want to sell this application so I'm going to build it on a OS that has the highest market share. All developers want a monopoly for whichever Operating System they prefer to use or know best. BTW, that in my opinion is part of the reason for the religious fervor. Developers have a favorite OS. If it is not the one that is dominant then they see their job opportunities diminished and may have to sell out and grudgingly using the dominant OS. When I'm developing an application I desire a consistent platform for my application. I want a consistent set of APIs (Application programming Interfaces) that I can count on to be on all machines where the application will be deployed. In this case, I need a set of Internet functions that I can use, and I'm reasonably sure a large portion of the populace will have on there computers ($$$). IE (Internet Explorer) is is a collection of components that anyone can use (anyone meaning programmers). When you launch IE you see a big program. I see a thin shell of an application that embeds various components that anyone can use. When I'm building this SI search application I can use these components (various OS services) in my app. If you choose to install and use a different browser fine but my app will still work because the Internet services are part of the base platform. You are not hindered in your choice of browser and I'm not required to write a ton of code to determine which browser is installed and another ton of code specific for each browser's Internet services if they make these services available at all. What does built into the OS mean? Windows is implemented as a bunch of DLLs. People write DLL's all the time. When MS provides a DLL it may or may not be part of the OS. If it is part of the OS (Win32 standard) then I take it to be an agreement that those services can be used and they will not go away in future versions of the OS. This means when I use them and reasonably assume that my application will work in the next version of the OS (not always true). When MS says that IE is part of the OS and can not be removed they are being too technical for lawyers and judges to understand. What they are saying is that the dlls that provide the services the browser uses are part of the OS. If these services (dlls) are removed then a lot of other applications will no longer work including ones written by MS. They made a big mistake in thinking that DOJ, Congress and the Judge could understand the technical issue involved. The judge is obviously technically ignorant. Tom

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