[Am-info] New Apple store near Beantown

[Joe Moore]

On Sat, Dec 15, 2001 at 03:43:35PM -0800, Mitch Stone wrote:
> --- From a message sent by Erick Andrews on 12/15/01 10:20 AM ---
> 
> >The way I see it is most Mac users will have to pay more to 
> >stay on MS's "upgrade treadmill", sped up every year or so 
> >with MS Office, Outlook, and other MS apps, changed with 
> >new fluff and changed so the previous versions will become 
> >incompatible with the latest.  Yep, paying again and again to
> >help maintain MS's monopoly.
> 
> So, what you're saying is, Mac users would be better off if Microsoft did 
> not offer Office and its other products for the Mac platform?

Mac users would be better off if Microsoft did not use "porting Office
to MacOS" as a lever to prevent Apple's potential attacks on MS's monopoly.

> 
> >And with Internet Explorer, should one *not* choose a 
> >different browser, Mac users will get sucked more and more
> >into the MS proprietary websites.  Dunno, maybe many 
> >already are.  Once addicted, the leap to Passport, .NET and
> >subscription services will an easier step.  Hold on to your
> >wallet!
> 
> Please explain this argument. I really don't understand it.

The Microsoft Conspiracy Theorists propose that Internet Explorer leads
to proprietary HTML extensions and websites that check the browser information
sent by the user's browser, which in turn leads to web sites that are
inaccessible to users of "alternative" browsers.  This, in turn leads to
a drop in the number of "alternative" browser users, which leads more web
site operators to de-emphasize support for "alternative" browsers.  Once
these web sites aren't concerned about supporting anything other than IE,
it becomes easier for them to move to IE-only (or more accurately Windows-only)
features: ActiveX controls, FrontPage server extensions (and therefore Windows
on the servers); which means Passport authentication and digital wallet info;
.NET client-server applications; and on-demand application delivery from
Microsoft Software subscriptions.

In a way, it's a worst-case scenario of the browser "network effects", but
given Microsoft's history of exploiting OS network effects, or application
suite network effects, it's not particularly unrealistic.

--Joe
-- 
When you find yourself on the cutting edge of technology, remember:
   The trailing edge is sharper than the leading edge.