True, not shipping the 3.1 browser sooner or bringing the UNIX development in-house was a mistake. Hopefully we've learned from it.
Why was it a mistake, and what did you learn from it? I have my own ideas on this, but I want to hear what you have to say.
Still: I'd rather have the current situation over a hypothetical situation where we do have a UNIX product but IE3 had shipped with less features and compared unfavorably to Nav3.
Assuming it's an "either-or" choice, I can't disagree. An IE3 that compared unfavorably to Navigator would have been a marketing disaster. As it was I think a lot of people, including those at Netscape, were surprised by Netscape's resiliency. We're coming up on two years after Chairman Bill's Pearl Harbor speech, and Netscape still controls upwards of 70 percent of the Browser market.
I think the Economist article points up some of the reasons why:
"Many firms had already installed Netscape's browser by June 1996, when Microsoft released the first version of a browser that could claim to work as well as the Navigator. The fact that Microsoft's software was free meant little to corporate systems managers: most saw no reason to replace one browser with another that was no better, especially when that meant reconfiguring hundreds or thousands of PCs and retraining their users."
Another factor that I think played a role is the perception that Microsoft's browser is not really free, or, it may be free today, but when Microsoft is through eliminating Netscape, it won't be free any more. Not that the people I talk to are a scientific sampling of the IT profession, but a recurrent theme is that, one way or another, Microsoft is going to get its money.
Bottom line is we need to ship good browsers for both the more popular UNIXes and Win32, this is a market requirement which we see quite clearly. But the Win32 browsers are and will be the most critical/leveraged--even Sun and Netscape have biased their release dates and schedules to give Win32 priority over other platforms.
I can't speak for Sun and Netscape, but I suspect one reason that they came out first with Win32 browsers (apart from the share of new PC sales occupied by Wintel machines) is that Java is a 32 bit application that had to be retrofitted to run on Win16.
This is highly debatable, so I'll disagree. . . .
I agree that the Economist author did not do a very good job of supporting his assertion that "ecause Microsoft tied its browser closely to its operating systems, it has fallen behind in the race to develop new features: it will not release its fourth-generation browser until later this year, six months after Netscape." It just kind of hangs there all by itself, followed by the reference to anti-Gates sentiment in the Silicon Valley.
My question to you is this: what are the factors that account for the late release of IE4? To what extent did the need to integrate IE with legacy code cause the delay?
Version numbers are pretty meaningless when comparing two different products (we're as guilty of version fudging as anyone else, e.g. NT3.1 was really NT1.0 and so on).
If Microsoft had a chance to "lap" Netscape (release IE5 before Netscape could get out Nav4), you don't think they'd take it? In technical terms, it might have meant little, but it would have been a marketing coup: here's Microsoft taking the leadership position from away the company that, until now, was the drving force of innovation on the internet. In marketing, the version number says it all.
I guarantee you that the Win32-specific feature (shell integration) is not taking any longer than anything else--even if it were ready now, final shipment would still have to wait for the other features to catch up.
Such as?
One thing I don't like about IE4 is how Microsoft is trying to use advertising to "freeze" the market in anticipation of the release of IE4. And, as in the past, they are taking forever to get it out. Do people really still fall for this old trick?
BTW:
One issue I think Microsoft needs to address is the issue of conflict of interest: Microsoft's controls Windows and its goal is to sell Windows. Therefore, Microsoft's products will be optimized for the Windows (specifically, Win32, since that's the upgrade path Microsoft wants people to take), and everything Microsoft says and does will be geared toward getting the customer to standardize on Windows, even if doing so is not really in the customer's long-term interest. Therefore, Microsoft is not the best source to turn to when seeking advice on what software is best for implementing intranets and other solutions in a cross-platform environment. For that, you need a company that is truly committed to writing software for the cross-platform environment. Or so the argument goes.
I think this conflict of interest issue is deep-seated, and inherent in a Windows-centric marketing strategy. And I think it's going to get more and more acute as Microsoft's strategy unfolds and people come to understand it.
Solution? Microsoft could give up control of Windows to a neutral standards body.
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