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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (13176)	12/13/1998 6:10:00 AM
From: mozek	Respond to of 74651

Netscape themselves proclaimed the browser the next platform. It was Marc Andreesen who said that the browser platform for applications would relegate Windows 95 to a bunch of partially debugged device drivers. One can "integrate" anything and call it OS, and bits of the "integrated" code will of course be useful to other applications in the same class. ... Suppose Microsoft for marketing or legal reasons decided Solitaire was henceforth to be an integrated part of the OS (rather than simply a bundled game application), and included an "integrated" "Solitaire API" in Windows 2000. That API could certainly be useful to me if I wanted to write a Solitaire-like game... This is not at all the same as applications using Windows' Internet Explorer technology. Internet protocol support (HTTP, HTML, TCP/IP, SSL, etc) is a natural evolution of network support in the operating system. Quicken is not in the same class as IE, it uses the operating system support for those protocols to implement a complete Personal Finance application. This is a perfect example of an application's use of a generic I/O and protocol service in the operating system. From a technical perspective, I believe this is unassailable. Thanks, Mike

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (13176)	12/13/1998 3:01:00 PM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 74651

Charles - These are good points, but I think it is possible to actually draw some lines. Look at the sate of network protocol stacks on Windows in 1990 - If you wanted TCP/IP you loaded a TSR and driver set from FTP, if you wanted SNA you did the same with either third party or IBM stacks, and god help you if you needed to run a TCP/IP WAN and also connect to a mainframe from the same client box. I had this problem on a system I built in 1989-1990. It was a great relief to get an integrated driver and stack model, which, flawed as it was, at least allowed us to write to a higher level for network interface. This was a legitimate thing to include in the OS, IMO. 'web aware' components in the OS are another example of this class of service, although I don't necessarily think that MSFT's ideas on how this should be done are the clear choice. This is one area where OSS style development has a big edge over a single commercial developer, since no one knows all of the ways that programmers and users might need to integrate such components. I personally hope that MSFT 'opens' this process somewhat, since otherwise we may spend years while 'add on' stuff gains traction or withers.

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (13176)	12/13/1998 6:17:00 PM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

Instead of Solitaire, consider Quicken (which you call an application in your posting); suppose Microsoft decided to deal with Quicken once and for all and made Money an "integrated" part of Windows 2000. What would stop them? While I agree with some of your points I think you're off base here. There is no logical claim that Money Management is a function of the operating system. However, a logical claim can be made that a Web Browser is a function of the operating system as a Web Browser is merely the next logical extension of a File Browser.