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To: HerbVic who wrote (17814)	9/11/1998 3:37:00 PM
From: rhet0ric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

OT: browser war = desktop war I don't buy that. The browser is to the internet as a key is to a lock. ... An OS, on the other hand, is a building. Since I compared the browser to an OS, why don't I explain why I think that analogy is apt. (Or, to use your analogy, I would say that they are both buildings, with a structure full of many different keys and locks). In essence, if we compare the Internet to a desktop computer, we get: Browser = OS TCP/IP = File System Web Sites = Apps Physical Network and Computers = Hardware Yes, it's true that there will always be a lowest common denominator of standards that any company can adhere to in creating its own browser or Web site. But a lot of the higher-level functions rely on application-level support in either the browser (client), the site (server), or both. Most Web sites that provide valuable services use applications of one sort or another. I think the amount of discussion on this thread alone about what browsers are able to run what apps on what platforms, e.g. with streaming quotes, is a pretty good indication that this application support is a crucial part of the Internet, and affects what developers support and what users choose for their platform. It's funny that this discussion is inter-threaded with our own--it only backs what I'm saying. Now, Microsoft is doing several things simultaneously: 1) it's providing the lowest common denominator standards for html etc, actually it's pretty good at this, 2) it's screwing up many of the standard app-level services of its competitors, like Java and JavaScript, so that they don't work properly in IE, 3) it's offering proprietary app-level services that really only work with IE and Windows, like ActiveX, JScript, MSJava, etc., and 4) it's leveraging its dominance of the desktop, i.e. Windows, to gain dominant market share in the browser. So it's pretty clear that if Microsoft's IE becomes the dominant browser, many standard apps will break in IE, sites will have to support IE's app-level services, and other browsers will not be able to do the same. This is exactly the situation we're in right now, and it's only going to get worse. And it's essentially the same situation as the desktop war of the 80s. The only way to turn this around is to back Netscape's open source code initiative, and pray that the DOJ does the right thing and prevents MS from becoming an Internet monopoly. rhet0ric