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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (16716)	1/26/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Too late--the browser is the OS news.com This is Sal's favorite analyst, Bill Gurley. The title is somewhat misleading; in the end, he tees off on a pet peeve of mine, overdesigned web pages, and weighs in for one of Sal's favorites, Yahoo! Interestingly, a few developers failed to let the paradigms of the past affect their decision making. Most notably, Yahoo stressed ubiquity and speed above all else. The company wanted the majority of its users to have a quick and consistent experience every time they interacted with the service. This meant focusing on the lower end of the spectrum (i.e., supporting the dial-up user with version 2.0 of Netscape's Navigator), and ignoring the desire to use elaborate bells and whistles. To date, Yahoo's quality-assurance group tests new features using a 9,600-baud dial-up modem. Also, Yahoo still has not implemented frames on its core service, despite the fact that many leading Web sites have. So while its competitor's users wait for graphics to download, Yahoo has already delivered three page views and, subsequently, ads. These issues are far from settled. With the software industry now fully embracing the browser as a user interface, many more firms will soon be betting their future on speed and ubiquity vs. jazz and appeal. Amplitude Software, of San Francisco, insists that supporting versions 2.0 and up of both browsers has been a key to its success. Others have made design decisions around Java or Microsoft's ActiveX that will require their customers to upgrade not only their browsers, but also potentially their machines. With the proliferation of browser versions and Java virtual machines growing, it is certainly a dangerous time to make choices such as these, especially when you consider the significance of historical high-tech UI decisions. Yahoo is using its UI advantage to attack unknowing industries like news providers. If you want easy and fast access to the latest news, don't go to CNN, CNBC, or ESPN, go to Yahoo. You will be five pages deep into Yahoo before ESPN can deliver its opening screen. Yahoo's chief search competitors have slowly learned this lesson and have removed elaborate graphics that once graced their sites. However, many people continue to beat their heads against the wall. Most notable are Time Warner with its Pathfinder site and none other than Microsoft, which has the strongest predisposition to believe in the rules of the past. Wading through pages on MSN with anything other than a full T-1 connection is like trying to run in three feet of mud. In browser-based applications and services, adhering to the adage "function over form" may be the best bet. Sounds good to me. I've said before, I got no idea why I'm always downloading 50kbytes of stuff to read a 500 word story. "A picture is worth a thousand words" - 20th century ad man. Cheers, Dan.