The beginning of the end for the Netscape Browser???

[Brian Kelly]

>Well who knows about the .Net thing - I mean, P.T. Barnum said "there's a
>sucker born every minute" and/or "you can fool most of the people most
>of the time".  If .Net flies (and I have no real doubts that most people
>will be dragged along, even if a few are kicking and screaming) then it
>will be another testament to Barnum's cynical wisdom.  Even Linus
>Torvalds (inventor of the Linux kernel), an infamously even-tempered
>fellow, said recently that the whole idea of convincing people to rent
>their software instead of owning it was just nutty.  If any marketing
>department is up to the challenge, it is Microsoft's  :)


But it was Sun (supported by Oracle) who first popularised the notion of the
thin client with the fat server, the rage backend database and the network
being critical.

This was first rubbished by Microsoft, but then they became aware of the
advantages and they are now positioning .Net as their framework for Web
services as opposed to Sun's ONE vision.

There are many advantages to Web services (reusable components which can be
accessed using standard Web protocols.

Sadly, as so often happens, it's difficult to have a rational debate on the
pros and cons of this developments :-(

Brian Kelly
--------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
BA2 7AY
Email: B.Kelly at ukoln.ac.uk
Phone: (+44) 1225 323943