Re: Orrin Hatch: Netscape vs. MS

[David Dunn <david.dunn@vc3.com>]

  Matthew Benjamin wrote: 
  > 
  > On the other hand, as a UNIX advocate, can you honestly say that
  > Microsoft's IE for UNIX is comparable to Netscape Navigator 4.0.3 for
  > UNIX?  Navigator 4.0.3 seems to have some bugs left, but it  runs on
  > every major UNIX variant, including Linux.
  
  No, I can't.  In the UNIX arena NS is clearly superior and any
  claims Microsoft makes for cross-platform compatibility are purely
  vaporware.  This is one of the reasons we tried to avoid being
  MS-centric
  in our development.
  
  > 
  > More to the point, in my view, Microsoft's takeover of the browser
  > market--as with other markets--has NOT been fair, or feature-based, even
  > though IE 4 is now an impressive product.
  > 
  > The first three releases of Internet Explorer were NOT competitive with
  > Netscape, feature for feature, and major corporations announced they
  > were standardizing on Netscape--until Microsoft announced they were
  > giving their browser away free, while continuing to upgrade it
  > indefinitely.
  ...
  > The IIS giveaway has been far more damaging to the market than the
  > browser giveaway, in my view, because the webserver market had
  > previously been heavily dominated by UNIX, the major competitor of
  > Windows NT.
  
  It's hard to argue against the notion that the giveaway of a
  technologically
  equivalent (roughly) product has hurt Netscape.  Similarly, the NT/IIS
  combo
  is damaging UNIX's hold in the web server market and damaging Netscape's
  hold
  in the NT web server market.  It's interesting to note, however, that
  web
  servers and web browsers are included at no additional cost with the
  base
  OS of many commercial UNIX systems and have been for some time.  So is
  it truly
  unfair for Microsoft to do the same?
  
  Also, if you view the computing world from a web-centric viewpoint where
  the
  browser and the web server are simply the building blocks on which all
  higher level
  applications and functionality are built, then it is logical to conclude
  that
  the web browser and web server --should-- be part of the core operating
  system.
  It's my expectation that any client OS I buy, be it Microsoft's
  or Apple's, Linux or Solaris, will have a browser bundled in it. 
  Similarly
  I expect that any server OS I buy will have a web server bundled in it.
  These are indispensible pieces of the compute environment, no different
  then FTP or telnet clients and servers, and, as such,
  should be included in the base OS package I buy.  
  
  David
  
  -- 
  David Dunn			| Email: david.dunn@vc3.com
  VC3, Inc.			| URL:	 http://www.vc3.com
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