> Almost on the mark, but see my remarks below.
>
> Dick
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wayne M. Smith <wmsmith_at_earthlink.net>
> To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2000 12:12 AM
> Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
>
>
> All the talk about the browser market is a red herring. Internet Explorer
> was never a product separate from Windows.
Wrong.,. It was in the 95 PLUS pack an add on product I spent extra
for. IE2 really sucked. It was basically a badly reworked Mosaic.
The v3 product was pretty good... however.
> It was a part of the OS utility package called PLUS!
Yup. Which was SEPERATE from Win95 and not available for download until
Netscape was taking off and Bill Gates had the internet epiphany..,
> Internet Explorer always was a part of the Windows 9x package. Netscape,
> OTOH, was a commercial product intended for sale, but initially offered
> gratis to individual users.
Nope, it was only 3.x of IE that was a download.
> HOWEVER . . . they did have to purchase the
> WINSOCK from a third party, i.e. Trumpet, in most cases. This was never the
> case with Internet explorer.
Nope Winsock and Networking was a direct part of Win95, WinNT etc.
It was an addon to Win3.1. Most of us used Trumpet until the IE3
package added all the goodies.
> Only after Internet Explorer became as popular
> as it did under '95 did Microsoft release the "made for WIndows 3.1x"
> version, also at no charge, but complete with its own WINSOCK and the 32-bit
> runtime libraries it needed for operation under the 16-bit OS.
Yup The Win9x version was about 6 months to a year ahead of the Win9x
version.
>
> In the meantime, IBM had acquired LOTUS, primarily in order to take over the
> Lotus Notes program. With the spread of Netscape, people found that
> Netscape would replace Lotus Notes quite easily, hence IBM quickly acquired
> them, only to distance themselves from it later, in order to APPEAR to be an
> outsider to the conflict which I'm quite certain they actually scripted, and
> which is now being played out in the courts.
Well, they rather quickly realised Notes Servers needed web
accessibility so Domino became a hot upgrade to Notes Server and Client.
>
> Unfortunately, there does appear to be evidence that MS overreached its
> rightful position in the industry, giving their applications developers an
> advantage by giving them information they didn't publish as part of the
> standard API. That was an anticompetitive act, and should be reversed in
> some way.
Yup.
>
> Many people think that lobotomizing MS would help the industry. I am not
> among them, however, because, at least for now, MS is the only organization
> capable of mustering the talent and resources to generate application
> software that pretty much functions as it should within the framework of
> this extremely complex OS.
>
Believe me, I think the appllications could be done by hundreds of
companies -- if the MS apps folks were divorced of early access to the
API's the lead MS got over everyone else would dissapear.
> Even if someone else could do it, which I seriously doubt, it's unlikely
> anyone can come up with an OS capable of competing against Windows, if the
> same tests are to be applied that have been used to determine MS' practices
> monopolistic or anticompetitive. If the complete source code for Windows is
> to be mandated by the courts to be made available to anyone who wishes to
> write applications for Windows, MS is correct in demanding that the code be
> released only to companies who, including all their employees as
> individuals, be barred for a period of, say, ten years, from participating
> in the production of any operating system which might be used as a
> competitor to Microsoft's OS products, including the drivers, utilities, or
> ancillary programs, e.g. a browser.
>
Actually, if there was a GUI like the IBM Workplace Shell from OS/2
available on FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, etc there could be some
competitive apps. Right now I'm watching Koffice and the KDE stuff and
really enjoying WordPerfect Office 2000 on Linux.
> If they're to "fix" this thing in a permanent way, then they will have to
> legislate a solution which would require that no person involved in the
> development of any major software product be permitted to communicate with
> anyone else, not his/her spouse, offspring, superiors or subordinates,
> except in permanently recorded written form for a period not less than five
> years beyond the end of the economic life of that product. I doubt that
> will happen.
>
Nope. Make the OS vendor, the Tooks vendor and the Desktop apps vendor
diferent companies and let the fun begin.
I bet there would be an MS Office for Unix in about 6 months.
I also think they would see Borland tools back in the windows area
if they had the same API info as the Visual-whatever folks.
IBM's stuff might even expand their toolsets even further.
Bill
--
bpechter_at_monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
| Linux: Where do you want to go tomorrow?
| BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 18:15:44 BST