To: Gary Ku who wrote (24175 ) 11/3/1998 8:18:00 AM From: EPS Respond to of 42771
Microsoft rewrites its own history By John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine October 13, 1998 9:59 AM PT The recent assertions that Microsoft had its current Internet strategy in play as early as December 1993 are utter nonsense, although the company was apparently beginning to become aware of the Internet in early 1994. Microsoft had an executive retreat two days after Netscape was founded, on April 6, 1994, but there's no evidence that this led to any serious effort. I say this because if you follow Gates's column in The New York Times and his speeches, which are posted on Microsoft's Web site, you'll notice he seemed nonplussed by the Net until late 1995. By early 1996 he became a fanatic. It all began with two memos that floated around the company in early 1994 proclaiming the Net to be the next big thing. These memos by (then) genuinely low-level employees are interesting, but they are hardly convincing evidence that Microsoft took the Net seriously. Shortly after the April 6 retreat, Microsoft began talks to license the browser already developed by Spyglass. It was as if the company wanted to have something ready just in case. But if Gates had sincerely considered the Net important, then Microsoft would have developed a browser in-house in no time at all. Version 1.0 browsers were not complex code. Over seven months later, despite the fact that most of the world was turning toward the Net, Gates gave his fanciful "Information at Your Fingertips" speech at Fall Comdex. Throughout the speech, he mentioned the word Internet once--and only in passing. He instead harped on how CD-ROMs would rule the earth. Throughout much of 1995, Microsoft was still clueless, at least in the executive suites. The company was banking on the success of MSN, an online service. Peter Lewis's column in The New York Times on February 26, 1995, on "making Microsoft the king of the online universe" discussed Microsoft's game plan, as implemented by MSN's honcho at the time, Russ Siegelman. The litany was that "tens of millions of personal computers around the world that now use Microsoft software will be connected to a network that both embraces the global Internet and rivals it in size. Although on-line information competitors like America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy have taken nearly a decade to amass an estimated total of six million subscribers, Microsoft hopes to overtake them all within a year of its scheduled launch in August." At that time, MSN--not a browser--was going to be built into Microsoft Windows 95. Everyone was freaked about Microsoft getting into the online business. The same Times column quoted newsletter pundit Jeff Tarter as saying, "My guess is that the Internet will vanish almost as quickly as it surged into prominence. I think The Microsoft Network is going to be the Internet of 1996." This kind of nonsense was swallowed whole by Microsoft executives. There was no way the company was going to take the Internet seriously! Earlier the same month, Bill gave a speech to his old high school. He was still proclaiming the CD-ROM revolution, twice referring to the Internet as "that thing called the Internet," as if it were an inconsequential bug or something. It was August 1995 when things changed. Netscape became public, and Jim Clark became an instant billionaire. More important, on August 8, 1995, the front page of Forbes ASAP read "Netscape's Marc Andreeson: George Gilder thinks this kid can topple Bill Gates." This was during the peak of Gilder's cult of personality. When he spoke, people listened. Microsoft must have freaked at this turn of events. Within months, the Internet was emphasized in every Gates speech. MSN's flop just made him more frantic. This was combined with dubious assertions by Netscape execs about burying Microsoft somehow. Talk soon emerged about making an OS from the browser. Quite a stretch, but apparently not enough to keep Gates from taking it seriously. On May 30, 1996, Gates spoke at M.I.T., and the dream of the CD-ROM revolution and his conception of the Internet and browser technology had changed drastically. Here he was freaking out over another imagined threat: "Is Netscape an operating-system competitor? Absolutely, even though what they sell today is not an operating system; it is going to be an operating system." Over two years have passed, and I'm still waiting for this imaginary Netscape OS. It was bull, and so is Microsoft's attempt to rewrite history.