M31,
You don't sound very objective about the whole thing. Sounds more like some pretty strong personal feelings against Bill Gates. Do you know him, or is he just a scapegoat for your frustration?
How's this for a review? I think IE sucks...
I said "major" reviews :-) Most of the real reviews stated specifically what they liked/didn't like about each product. Actually, I think Nav is alright. I had Nav 4 installed on my system for a while to try and honestly see which I liked better, but had too many crashing problems with Nav's Java. Eventually, I went back to IE. I think IE's better, but there are some things I liked in Nav more than IE 3.0 (like smoother page display & better page cache). I definitely like IE 4.0 more than Nav in everything that comes to mind. Overall, I think it's an easier to use and more polished product.
Have you read the lawsuit transcript?
Yes, I've read the transcript in its entirety. It may surprise you, but these comments were selected out of thousands of statements and pieces of correspondence, taken out of context, twisted to inaccurately depict a competitive attitude as underhanded, and seem to be less alarming than many comments and strategic statements I've heard from Sun and Netscape.
When Scott McNealy said in the first JavaOne keynote that Microsoft and Intel needed to be "chopped down" like trees, we got the message pretty quickly that our desire to work as partners was purely unilateral. This was just before they announced a number of Java initiatives with Netscape & others that we legally should have known about as licensees but didn't (check out Microsoft's Java license agreement on our web site).
Funny that Scott McNealy is quite involved and vocal in both the Microsoft and Intel actions from the Justice dept (recently quoted in a zdnet article about the Intel suit). I believe that Orin Hatch said in the Bill Gates inquisition that he had spoken at length with McNealy often and just the night before. Of course McNealy's a simple working man with family roots in the all-American auto industry and a hockey playing son named "Maverick", so when he says softly in an NPR interview that "no one will get sued for using Java" we should all believe him. BTW, this was prior to Sun suing Microsoft over Java & prior to their notice to many tens of small companies to cease and desist their use of the Java name in products for Java. This is just the information that's publicly available.
Just look at Netscape's original business plan and any news quoting Marc Andreesen from the second half of 1995 and you'll see plenty of strategies/statements much worse than any in the DOJ complaint. Of course Netscape was a defenseless little company with 90% browser market share and 1/5 the market cap of Microsoft at the time.
You know, if rather than attacking Microsoft, you just wanted to see a better IE, you could let them know specifically what features/improvements you'd like to see. You'd be surprised at their receptiveness to customer feedback.
Thanks,
Mike |
