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

To: ed who wrote (19219)	5/17/1998 11:49:00 PM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

Ed, I think you're a. . . Never mind. So, is this Bill's DNS we're talking about? IE is integrated with Windows pretty much the way Word is. This was more or less admitted in the consent decree hearings. I'll repeat what I wrote to Dwight: Now, if Microsoft really wanted to "integrate" Windows with the Web, it would be more consistent with what the web is and how distributed programs work to integrate on the server side instead of the client side. That is, the "web view" of Windows would be a service offered by Windows, and any browser anywhere could access that view, modulo appropriate security. Maybe that even crossed somebody's mind at Microsoft, but was shot down because it didn't fit into the business plan, cutting off the air supply and all that. Instead, you got the same Windows as before, accessible from exactly one seat, but you have the pleasure of a browser window for every folder you open. Very innovative. I don't prejudge the outcome of any of this, I'm just not impressed by the whole "We are the world / Microsoft must innovate" PR defense strategy. Other big companies have dealt with this stuff, but none of them have resorted to this "beyond the comprehension of mere mortals" line. It's such an arcane area of the law anyway, nobody would follow it if Bill wasn't always saying something transparent for certain wags to make fun of. Cheers, Dan.

To: ed who wrote (19219)	5/18/1998 12:58:00 AM
From: Bearded One	Respond to of 24154

One main problem with the term "operating system" is that it's very ill defined. An old Professor of mine once defined operating systems as "all the code you didn't write." For non-specialists, that would translate "all the code you didn't purchase separately as applications." So really, if we're just talking about "operating systems" as a product, Microsoft has a point-- it can be just about anything. On the other hand, Ma Bell could have defined 'telephone service' as just about anything. They decided to define it as both long distance and local calls "integrated" in one unit. The DOJ disagreed and broke them up. So just having a loose definition on your side may not mean much. This long-distance vs. local-call analogy is my personal favorite to compare to the current situation. We could consider local filesystems and local area networks to be the "local calls," while internet access is the 'long distance calls.' Similar interface? If you wan't. Integrated? You could make it so. Illegal tying? Well, it's easily break-upable. Probably more so than long-distance vs. local calls. After all, I use the internet in a very different way than I use my local file system. I don't read newspapers or join mailing lists from my file system, for example.

To: ed who wrote (19219)	5/18/1998 8:41:00 AM
From: Thure Meyer	Respond to of 24154

"Do you think we need a browser embeded in the OS to search for the target address" NO! In fact that would be the worst possible solution. And it shows that you don't understand why we (the computing world) are moving to a distributed object solution. The last thing that is needed at this point is more embedded "features" the make an OS more brittle. In fact I think OS's should be simplified, they have become too cumbersome as is. If you are interested read some of the Bell Labs notes from 1968 (Thomson, et.al), follow the development of operating systems theory and then compare Linux to current implementations of say AIX and Solaris. I think you will agree that more complexity in operating systems is not desirable. Thure