Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Hidden failure of MSIE

Author:Paul L. Bruno
Posted:6/23/1999; 2:19:16 PM
Topic:Hidden failure of Win2k
Msg #:7743 (In response to 7699)
Prev/Next:7742 / 7744

4.Keep lobbying the investors. Why aren't there any startups to take advantage of Microsoft's fear?

I know December's the time for retrospection. But I think you've answered this question yourself:

Startups don't enter this field because they, like you, think either the browser war is over, or it's moving to a new more subtle level of sophistication.

Maybe they were starting to think there were no alternatives. After all, Microsoft was doing so much for them. Today we want to give you a window into that power, a window that's visible in any browser. Later this week we'll open up a live demo of the new stuff, which will only be usable in MSIE 5.0b2/Win.

Or, maybe they wrote this idea off a couple of years ago: I don't want the browser to take over my desktop! Please, a web browser is just a way to display formatted pages of text and graphics. It's not an excuse for engineers at Microsoft, Netscape and Sun to rewrite the rules on how I use my computer.

I'm glad you came back to it.

Dave, I'm not trying to make you eat your words. I wish I had recorded all of my dreams and beliefs over time, so I could look back and see what's changed. And, I'm pulling for you to bring about the very thing that causes you to eat your hat:

Web browsers are not leading edge in 1998. If history is any guide, they are not going to change from this point on, any more than spreadsheets have changed since the first one shipped in 1980. I'll eat my hat if web browsers work substantially differently in ten years.

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