RE: Microsoft's Zone

["DeBrock, Larry" <ldebrock@uiuc.edu>]

  Your point is????
  
  I think this paranoia is getting out of hand when you try to equate any
  system incompatibility with some sinister plot.
  
  At my campus (Univ of Ill at Urbana-Champaign), many thousands of
  students take their exams and problem sets over the web on a very nice
  instructional package called Mallard (tm).  You cannot use MSIE with
  this software...big warning signs direct you to use Netscape as your
  browser.
  
  The Agricultural and Consumer Economics department on this campus runs
  their entire undergraduate curriculum off a single, integrated web site
  called ACElink, complete with crosslinked syllabi, common glossaries
  across courses, on line testing, etc.  In the sign on process, you are
  FORBIDDEN to enter your login/password sequence if you use MSIE.  You
  just get a message that says something like "Please exit your MSIE and
  reenter using Netscape"
  
  So, is this some nasty plot by the U of I?  Should the antitrust
  authorities be out to get them?  It seems so, according to the logic I
  have been reading here.
  
  As an MSIE user who runs one of his classes on Mallard, I can sympathize
  with Mr. Schult's comment (below) in saying that it is "irritating" to
  have to switch browsers to access some sites.
  
  -larry
  
  
  On Friday, October 24, 1997 9:37 PM, James Love [SMTP:love@cptech.org]
  wrote:
  > Declan McCullagh and others point out that Micrsoft's
  > http://www.zone.com, a site for Internet games, won't work with
  current
  > versions of Netscape.  I used Netscape and received this message.
  > 
  >        We're sorry. For technical reasons the Zone doesn't yet 
  >        support Netscape Navigator 3.0 and higher browsers. We're 
  >        working to add this support, and we apologize for the 
  >        inconvenience.  In the meantime, we invite you to download 
  >        Microsoft Internet Explorer for free.
  > 
  > 
  > On the Fight-Censorship list, Jeff Schult, commented:  "The Zone was
  not
  > started by Microsoft, and was not browser dependent until after MS
  > bought it.  As a bridge player, I found it irritating to have to have
  > MSIE in order to continue using a site that I had enjoyed for quite a
  > while."