At 8:45 AM -0800 1/29/98, David A. Gatwood wrote:
>*their* sources... yeah, right.  Anybody know if there's any truth to the
>rumour of an IE port to some unix platforms? I vaguely remember reading

The January issue of SunExpert says they are porting IE 4 to Solaris,
HP-UX, AIX, and IRIX.  Preview release 1 for Solaris should already be out
somewhere on the Micro$oft web site.  It will use MOTIF and integrate with
UNIX applications for functions such as email.

"The plan as of press time is to release the other three UNIX versions of
IE over the next six months and to provide the final version for Solaris in
the first quarter of 1998."

<rant>

I've heard lots of indications that IE is better than Netscape, but let's
not forget what Microsoft's motivations are:  they want to *own* the
Internet.  All of their products are as good, and cheap as the competition
makes them be.  I have heard the quality of telephone support especially is
directly related to the competition.  I think the Netscape announcement is
a brilliant move that allows them to directly benefit from our concerns
about a Microsoft monopoly.

If anyone thinks the anti-trust laws that were passed to break up Standard
Oil will protect them, they should look at the history of the IBM
anti-trust case.  First Control Data tried and gave up:  they were winning,
but it would cost them more in legal fees than they stood to gain by
winning.  Then the Feds tried.  IBM built an office building in D.C. and
filled it with lawyers.  The Judge on that case had to answer > 300 pages a
day of objections from IBM in order to avoid dismissing the case.  This
went on for what 10, 20 years?  The case was only resolved 10-15 years ago
*after* the PC cloners, and supermini makers had removed IBM from their
stranglehold on the business.

I know Gates has to do something with his money, but the number of places
he shows up scares me.  Look at Barney, my daughter's favorite TV show.
Look at the Apollo Moon program:  they took zillions of pictures with real
film.  As a preservation measure NASA wanted to digitize those pictures,
but couldn't get the money.  Guess who digitized them and now owns the
rights to the digital versions?

Don't get me wrong.  I'd rather Gates owned the Apollo photos than have
them rot to nonexistance, just like I'd rather Turner owned all those
classic movies than have them rot to nonexistance.  But let's keep our eyes
open and think about how much of the world we should let him own.  And what
we can do about it.

Steve Jobs called it right when he said the battle over the Office suite
was over and Gates won.  The browser war is still in full swing, but
Netscape is falling behind fast unless something fundamental changes.  The
source code release is a big change.

</rant>

That went on a lot longer than I intended.  Hope you-all don't mind.

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