>>>But, the other side of the coin is, what is it, exactly, that they can't bundle with Windows and its "successor versions"? IE3 and 4? "Successor versions" of these products?<<<
I thought the language of the injunction said 'browsers.'
Anyway, I think at this point even if they flip the decision we will be talking about IE integrated with Windows 99. Unless they do what they have been saying they would since at least 1992 and finally have just one very capable low end product, Win95 + NT workstation. Call it, Oh, Cairo, for laughs.
Legal question: I think the whole reason they were bundling this was to avoid the obvious PR and anti-competitive problems of just giving it away on their web site or trying unsuccessfully to compete with Netscape by selling it.
Can they go back to just giving it away or would the government immediately intervene?
Also, now that they have appreciable user share, if not true market share, and since they are roughly equal to Communicator in features and reliability and so on, who thinks they might be able to actually compete in the market with it?
Personally, I would like to see them try to sell the thing at this point. I have always used Netscape, but truly, Communicator 'ain't all that.' The HTML WYSIWYG editor (which they just moved, including all the bugs, from NS 3 Gold) in particular makes me retch.
I'd like to see a couple of other browsers get into the fray, too. What a website does is now so mature that I think the water is safer for small competitors than before. I think with a team of 5 and a million dollars or so I would be able to do a browser by next Xmas that would embarass them both. (Definitely NOT starting with the Mosaic code.) So could a lot of other seasoned programmers I know, nothing special about me there.
Both of these browsers are now incredible inflated pork, fed by casts of hundreds. IMHO.
Chaz |
