Browser battle may have little impact usatoday.com
Mike, this story is in much the same spirit as yours, where everybody is scratching their head about what Microsoft is up to here. It's all sort of strange, Gerald Lampton and I, along with the people in this article, think Microsoft could cave totally and it wouldn't make much difference. Jerry may have backed off from that a little though. Who among the OEM's, who all love Bill by the way, could refuse the offer of "free" IE? Even if the alternative was something better that retail Win95, which by the way is what the customers want too, it's the best seller!
I wouldn't normally bother with USAToday, this article seems about an order of magnitude too long for them. It showed up on the news.com "other stories" thing, otherwise I'd never have seen it.
For the long term, some analysts say, Microsoft's biggest mistake would be winning the case. In Softletter, Jeffrey Tarter says if Explorer is integrated into Windows, Microsoft will have a harder time keeping Explorer current with fast-changing browser technology. Gens says Explorer will make Windows more bulky at a time when Microsoft needs to move it into cheaper, less-powerful devices that can't handle a monster operating system. ''The irony is that a victory could hurt,'' Gens says.
See, the Judge is your friend, Bill. Of course, where I used to guess that IE was purposely badly designed to make it inseparable from Windows, my reading now is that it's actually reasonable, as integrated as Word and Excel, and the only complicated and obscure part is Microsoft's legal strategy, "beyond the comprehension of mere mortals". Incomprehensible, perhaps, entertaining for sure. And by the way, what ever happened to IE4 for Unix? Where's Eric Lindstrom? While we're at it, what ever happened to "open" ActiveX? So many questions, so little time.
Cheers, Dan. |
