Sad..

Story: Lessons from the Browser WarsTotal Replies: 1
Author Content
macb

Apr 10, 2006
9:03 PM EDT
It aggravates me to see a supposedly "learned" academic plot two variables along the same axis.

IE didn't get to be the dominant browsers because they matched netscape feature for feature. It became the dominant browser because Microsoft made it the default, and made it at first difficult and then impossible to remove from Windows. Period, full stop.

Feature-wise IE and Netscape were neck and neck. I was switching often between Netscape, IE and the original Mozilla browser, generally as a result of which one was faster. When Microsoft first PURCHASED IE (in the form of Spyglass) it was pretty fast, and I switched to it for a while. But feature bloat caused me to switch back to Netscape. Netscape's own feature bloat caused me to switch finally to the plain and simple Mozilla. With the arrival of a somewhat mature Windows 2000 it was hard to avoid IE as many products plug-ins refused to work reliable on any other browser (under Windows). I guess the good news is that Microsoft's attempts at lock-in eventually caused me to stop using their products completely. Hopefully more and more people (especially business decision makers) will take that attitude and not be locked into one vendors OS, one vendors DBMS, or one vendors hardware. It takes a certain amount of maturity for CIOs and so forth to want to take back control of their own infrastructure. I'm sure they will get there eventually. I said eventually, as in, we have to wait for some of them to retire, die, or be put in jail (or at least fired) for misfeasance. It will take a while.
grouch

Apr 10, 2006
9:29 PM EDT
Suggested reading on this subject:

"Some Pro-MS Tears and an Antidote: Findings of Fact, USA v. MS" http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060404153340949&m...

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!