"Keith, Microsoft had discussed/demoed "Nashville" (the "set of technologies" that would later become IE4's integrated shell (ie., ActiveDesktop)) since 1995."
In 1995 they were still trying to get Windows 95 working. Yes, they talk all kinds of airy talk about vague stuff that might happen at some undefined point in the future all the time. Throw in enough city names and the suckers think something might really be going on. Much of the time this is just marketing types regurgitating what they heard somebody from some other company talk about. Maybe even someone on the Internet ;-) But vaporware doesn't count. Not that I know when or if Netscape ever got past the vaporware stage.
Anyway, you need a lot more than some conversation to really have a design or a direction. Unless you are talking about OLE. Everything else in Active that I know about was purchased, most of it after that. Miles audio libs for Direct sound, Rendermorphics for the 3D, etc.
As far as the directory services, my understanding is they don't work quite yet, never mind they are basically a clone of what Novell and others have done. That is important because this is the key bit of transparency we are talking about, the universal locators.
All just MHO, of course. And I don't quite know why I'm quibbling, since I detest the IE integration with the OS anyway. Forgive me.
BTW, are you writing or doing analysis for anyone these days?
Cheers,
Chaz |
