[LINK] FW: Netscape should stop whining about Microsoft dominance --S. Richman

[Rachel Polanskis]

On Wed, 20 Mar 2002, felipe rodriquez wrote:

> Hi,
>
> For all those enthousiast Microsoft lovers on this list:->


I thought Compuserve's problem was grossly inflated access prices,
proprietry non-internet protocols and no integration with the Internet
until rather late in the game.

I recall trying to get files off a compuserve BBS and having to get someone
to do it for me at rather large cost because the files were not
available on the Internet.  We subsequently published these
files on a web server and ended up with a very popular site
until it became too much work answering email.

Compuserve went under because it didn't "get with the program" and it's
Internet based access came far too
late to recover those users who jumped ship.  I think there was
some sort of "gateway" you needed to use at some stage that handled
email in and out of Compuserve and the Internet.  Much like
the proposed Microsoft network that died on the vine, Compuserve
had it's day by shooting itself in the foot.  Unlike AOL,
Microsoft does everything it can to destroy every competitor and
ensures it's success via "network.effects".   When AOL starts
taking over small ISP's, I'll get worried....

Netscape has reason to be concerned.  Microsoft is using it's market
power to usurp formerly Open standards and force users into using
IE because the websites are designed for a specific software platform
which I am sure Berners-Lee never had in mind.

If .Net becomes the smash hit MS hopes it will be, there will be a great
divide in Internet access.  I dread having to use MS products or
even code from them to access sites that could easily be coded to have
universal access.   I also wonder where the 3rd world and poorer
countries are going to get the money to purchase the high end PC's
required to use the net in the future, not to mention the bandwidth.

What MS is doing is patently wrong.  AOL merely evolved whereas
Compuserve didn't.


rachel

-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove@zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
      "People don't say sorry in this country" - Max Connors (Seachange)