Griping about Microsoft IE4 -Reply

[Huerfano County Public Library]

Thanks for setting everyone straight, Dan.  No one else could have done it
like you did.



-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Lester <DLESTER at bsu.idbsu.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Monday, July 21, 1997 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: Griping about Microsoft IE4 -Reply



>NO FLAMES follow, though some common sense
>does.....and perhaps a touch of sarcasm.  o-)
>
>cyclops
>
>>>> CMUNSON <CMUNSON at aaas.org> 07/16/97 10:55am
>>>>
>     Anyone who follows the computer industry can see that
>Microsoft is a  monopoly in that industry and that it wants to
>monopolize the  entertainment and information industries that
>are online.
>---------------
>I should know better than to respond to such nonsense, but
>I'm gonna give it a brief shot since it is Monday morning and
>I'm tired and testy.  o-)
>
>Big deal.  Netscape, Apple, IBM, and a zillion other
>companies want the same thing.  IBM and Apple each were
>leaders for a while.  They aren't.  There are surely no
>guarantees that MS will be there forever.  This is the way that
>business WORKS, whether MS or Sears or Prudential
>Insurance.  All want to be the biggest, best, richest, etc.
>Nothing new here.  And, yes, it isn't uniquely American.  o-)
>
>================
> It has a  project called Sidewalk that is an attempt to
>eliminate Yahoo. It gives its IE browser away FOR FREE.
>--------------
>So does Netscape.  I'll bet 90 percent of those reading this
>list did NOT pay for their Netscape.  And lots of publishers do
>deals like this, too.   I call it the "Cocaine Theory of
>Marketing", which despite the title doesn't mean it is bad.
>Ask WestLaw or others about their almost-free pricing to law
>schools so that the young lawyers will be hooked when they
>go out into the real world.  As to trying to eliminate Yahoo
>with Sidewalk, you're making an apples and oranges
>comparison.
>============
>It is attempting to privatize image collections (Corbis and
>Bettmann) and trying to buy librarians' silence with puny
>donations (Bill's worth 36 BILLION).
>---------------
>Almost ALL significant image collections are NOT free,
>especially to replicate images.  Bettman wasn't free before.
>So, who cares who is getting the bucks from it.?
>================
> Microsoft is trying to dominate the online travel industry with
>Expedia. It's even trying to colonize, no, assimilate Star Trek
>fan sites with Continuum.
>-------------------
>Might we getting a little over the edge here??   What about
>their fried chicken restaurants trying to take over the Colonel,
>and their new MicroTaco shops trying to run TacoBell out of
>business?  And are you wearing your new Microsoft
>underwear today?   I am.    o-)
>=================
> It's managed to get webmasters to stupidly put Microsoft IE
>button  ADVERTISEMENTS on their websites, WITHOUT
>EVEN PAYING THEM.
>-----------------------
>Well, so what?  No one is making anyone put IE buttons on
>their web pages.  Nor is anyone making webmasters put NS
>buttons on their web pages.  I'll leave the counting to you, but
>I'll bet there are more NS buttons on pages than IE buttons.
>And what about all the other buttons for all sorts of other
>software, from backoffice stuff to HTML Editors?  Are all
>those folks inherently evil too?   (either the webmasters or the
>companies who provide the software and buttons?)
>===============
>Its site builder program for webmasters is another attempt to
>get the techies hooked on Microsoft products. This idea that
>Microsoft has about including "channels" to corporate
>websites in its new browser is  pretty scary too. This is an
>attempt to take back the web by the advertisers and the big
>corporations.
>-------------------
>Well, I'm glad no OTHER companies try to get you hooked on
>their products, whether beer, soda, food, clothes, cars, etc.
>Have you ever read ANY literature in the field of brand loyalty?
> Car companies are always particularly interested in such,
>and so are computer companies.  Look at the figures in some
>reviews where these are provided.
>==============
>They are frightened about how  the web lets the small gal put
>up a website that looks as good as the megacorp.
>------------------------
>Not the world's best shot at political correctness, there.  But
>you tried.  And I don't see that as Microsoft being frightened.
>The more the "small/large man/woman" can do, the more it
>HELPS Microsoft, as that gives them a bigger market.
>They're after more and more of the consumer market for
>electronic services, as shown by their purchase of a cable
>company.  And, THAT is where the serious money is to
>them.....not in the big companies.  Remember, IBM made
>that mistake and it cost them dearly.
>=================
>     Is there no end to Microsoft's reach and ambitions?
>-------------------
>Who knows?  Who cares?  What about yours, mine, or those
>of others on the list?  Are reach and ambitions bad all of a
>sudden?
>================
>That is just some of the evidence and it should concern us. It
>doesn't have to be THIS WAY. IF MICROSOFT HAS
>DESTROYED THE ALTERNATIVES HOW ARE WE
>SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO GO CHOOSE THEM?
>------------------
>I sure don't see what they've destroyed as alternatives.  If you
>mean Apple, it isn't Microsoft...it is their own slow suicide
>ever since they decided to keep everything proprietary.  IBM
>played that one right, even though they've kept trying to invent
>their own weird things that they couldn't sell, ever since.
>==================
>Yeah, like Netscape has the same R&e===D budget as Microsoft.
>-----------
>So what?  I don't think Edison or Bell or Goddard or Hollerith
>or myriad others had big R&th--D budgets, either.  In fact, the
>best developments often come from everywhere EXCEPT the
>big companies.
>=================
>If you want to collude with the Microsoft Empire, so be it.
>-------------
>This is getting almost as good as some of the conspiracy
>freaks in places like the Flight-800 list or the alt.conspiracy
>groups.  o-)
>================
>Have you attempted to convey to Netscape what libraries
>need? Has anyone? I would think they would be more
>receptive than Microsoft.
>-------------------
>Of course libraries have done so.  I've done so.  And there is
>one thing you're forgetting.....that NEITHER of them has
>libraries as any significant part of their market....never have,
>never will.  I learned that one from IBM in the late sixties, and
>it still is true.  Libraries aren't much of a market to ANYONE
>except relatively small specialty companies, like library
>equipment sellers, bookstack builders, specialty book
>wholesalers or dealers, etc, etc.
>
>This is the real world.   We do NOT live in an ivory tower any
>more, if we ever did.  We need to grow up and learn to deal
>with it.
>
>cheers
>
>dan
>
>
>