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

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (17695)	3/1/1998 7:51:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Ya Call This An Upgrade? archive.abcnews.com Oh dear. Onetime loyal Microphile Fred Moody seems to be bucking for a coveted honorary membership in the sacred fellowship of the ilk. He's still on probationary status, but this column is a piece of work. A week old, I'm a bit irregular in checking up on old Fred. There are other irritations, including some of which I have not yet discovered. Rather than list them all-which would take up more space than there is available on the entire ABCNEWS.com site-let me just say this: NEVER CLICK ON THE "SEND AND RECEIVE" ICON! Ouch. I guess despite the cancellations, MSN still has its entertaining aspects, at least for the black humorists among us. What next, MSMST 2000? Inevitably, even the most loyal of users, struggling to adjust to a less kind and less gentle interface that takes more time to deliver less and that devours memory the way Microsoft devours competitors, must be demanding something in the way of compensation. It did not take me long to find the "advantages" built in to MSN 2.5. While you are waiting for the interminable connect-and-login procedure to run its course, you are invited to visit Carpoint and Expedia-two Microsoft commercial-transaction Web sites. Whenever you cause a popup menu to pop up, it offers an array of Microsoft transaction sites as menu options. Whenever you try to think about anything other than a Microsoft transaction site, the interface shoves a reminder in your face. As I wade through the thicket of "features" in MSN 2.5, I am reminded of the American automobile industry in the early 1970s. (Stay with me here as I try to deliver an analogy only slightly less complex than the MSN 2.5 interface.) Think of the Big Three car manufacturers as present-day computer hardware makers, and pretend that their products' "interface" or "operating system" (the bloated size of the cars, their inefficient fuel consumption, their useless "optional extras," and so on) was developed by a single manufacturer who forced all three to use its interface or go out of business. (In reality, this "interface" was a fad forced on American consumers by the Big Three working more or less in concert, but what the hell.) Visions of the Chevy Nova American consumers at the time were forced to buy these overpriced gas hogs because all three automakers refused to provide a low-cost, more efficient alternative. Finally, there emerged an alternative automotive "platform:" the small, fuel-efficient Japanese and German cars that nearly put the Big Three out of business. What is the point of this tortured analogy? Only to point out that Microsoft, in destroying operating-system and browser competition, is creating in the personal computer a new version of the early 1970s American automobile: gross, bloated, slow, memory-hogging, and increasingly unpleasant to use. The company is taking an uncharacteristically short view in believing it can seize control of the personal computer and force consumers to use Microsoft software no matter who manufactures their hardware. In the long view, consumer frustration and demand will inspire creation of a whole new hardware platform-the computing equivalent to driving's first Toyotas and Datsuns-before it will settle for a desktop Chrysler LeBaron. I'm still suspicious that Fred might be trying to infiltrate the ilk, but if this one doesn't finally kill the much dreaded "Chrysler car radio" antitrust defense, I don't know what will. Two cheers for Fred! Cheers, Dan.