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Dvorak Says MS Should Buy Opera 521

Posted by CmdrTaco from the why-does-everybody-want-it-suddenly-huh dept.
patro writes "Should MS beef up cranky old Internet Explorer for today's standards? Dvorak thinks buying Opera would be a smarter move. It works on all the major platforms including the Mac which IE won't support anymore and $400 million for it is pocket money for Microsoft."
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Dvorak Says MS Should Buy Opera More

Dvorak Says MS Should Buy Opera

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  • May I be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:42PM (#14320733)
    NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

    (filler text to get around message filters)

  • Yeah, well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by killmenow ( 184444 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:42PM (#14320735)
    ...Dvorak is a hack...so, there you have it.

    • Re:Yeah, well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:03PM (#14321047)
      ...Dvorak is a hack...so, there you have it.

      You got modded as a troll, but your comment is 100% correct. Dvorak has made a career out of spouting sensational bullshit (which even he must know is nonsense) in order to generate more hits for his site. He's one of the most successful trolls on all of the Internet.

      If the editors are going to pay any attention whatsoever to submissions about his articles (and they ought not), then Slashdot needs a "Dvorak" category, so we can filter it out.

      • Re:Yeah, well... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:13PM (#14321159)
        Dvorak has made a career out of spouting sensational bullshit (which even he must know is nonsense) in order to generate more hits for his site. He's one of the most successful trolls on all of the Internet.

        It's easy to criticise, but when was the last time that YOU had the same last name as someone who came up with a keyboard layout? Hmmmm? Didn't think so.
      • I second this motion. The last thing I want to read on Slashdot is anything related to Dvorak.

      • So many errors... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Thursday December 22, 2005 @06:02PM (#14322416) Homepage Journal
        Shall I start with the bit about how Microsoft has no reason to develop Mac programs anymore becuse they can just use the Intel-based versions? He seems to have forgotten that fact that the platform is more than just a processer archtecture, there's the OS API as well. It takes a lot of glue code to get an x86 Windows app to run on x86 Linux (and even then it's rarely perfect), and the same would be true on x86 Mac.

        Then he goes off on the whole "Opera identifies itself as IE so we don't know how many people use it" bull that's been debunked over and over and over again. Opera IDs itself as IE in the same way that IE identifies itself as Netscape -- and for the same reason. If you're paying any attention at all, you can tell the difference.

        Some examples:
        Netscape 4: "Mozilla/4.7 [en] (WinNT; U)"
        IE 6: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"
        Opera 7: "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Opera 7.50 [en]"

        You'll note that IE spoofs Netscape, that Opera spoofs IE (including the Netscape spoof), and that all three are easily distinguishable if you're looking in the right place.

        Does this guy have a clue what he's talking about?
        • Opera IDs itself as IE in the same way that IE identifies itself as Netscape -- and for the same reason.

          Because each identifies the spoofed one as the One True Browser?

    • Re:Yeah, well... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by drsquare ( 530038 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @05:10PM (#14321855)
      Yeah, Microsoft should spend $400 million on a browser because it runs on a platform they don't want to support anymore? Only a genius like Dvorak could have come up with that.

    • Re:Yeah, well... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SpecBear ( 769433 )

      I'm generally a strong proponent of RTFA. But if I do that in this case, then Dvorak's column brings in more ad revenue, and I really don't want to contribute to what's seems to be a severely mentally debilitating drug habit.

      On the other hand, if we give him enough slashdottings then maybe he'll go on a bender and OD. No more Dvorak drivel.

  • Imagine that... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mente ( 219525 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:43PM (#14320743)
    Last week everyone thought Opera was being bought by Google. So now its obvious that MS should buy it first to keep it out of the hands of Google.
    • I think you've got it backwards. Google would do well to prevent Microsoft from buying it.
      • Actually, one of Microsoft's classic tricks is tricking their compeititors into investing in white elephants. As seen recently when they bid up the price of AOL before feeding it to Google.

        However, Opera might have some value to MS on PocketPC. It has no real value to Google.

        • Re:Imagine that... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by itomato ( 91092 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:15PM (#14321193)
          First time I've heard of that..

          Usually it seems that Microsoft buys out a company that is most enticing to it's competitors, then turning that heralded technology into a White Elephant on their own.

          If they can't buy it, they re-implement it - badly.

          IE, Xbox, J++, .Net, WebTV, C#, Citrix, SoftPC, Hotmail, the list goes on.. It's the Story of Microsoft - all the way back to DOS.

          What they can't come up with on their own, they imitate or buy.
          more. [vcnet.com]

          Google could do good with Opera. The only reason Microsoft would buy it is to suffocate it in a dark closet.

    • Re:Imagine that... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Geno Z Heinlein ( 659438 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:58PM (#14320976)
      Last week everyone thought Opera was being bought by Google. So now its obvious that MS should buy it first to keep it out of the hands of Google.

      Wait, I think I've figured out the pattern!
      Google == China
      buying Opera == sending astronauts to the Moon
      Micro$oft == George "Dubya" Bush
      Now if we can just get Google to promise not to be evil... oh, wait, my analogy is breaking down.

    • Re:Imagine that... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ottothecow ( 600101 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:01PM (#14321017) Homepage
      And this week Dvorak pretends anti-trust laws dont exist.

      Generally, buying up your competetors (especially one of the very few competitors that could actually be bought) doesnt look so good when you've already been a convicted monopoly.

      • Re:Imagine that... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ravatar ( 891374 )
        It's not a matter of shutting other browsers out, it's a matter of having a browser capable of competing with the other current browsers.
    • That only leaves one option for Google... Buy Microsoft.

    • Re:Imagine that... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:33PM (#14321409) Journal
      Google gave Opera (and Mozilla foundation) a chunk of cash in exchange for Opera being totally free (as in no ads) and google being the preferred search engine. There could be other terms to their agreement as well...

      • Re:Imagine that... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rm69990 ( 885744 )
        No, you're wrong. Opera previously made their money selling their browser or including ads in it. Now Google pays them for every Google search done using Opera's search functionalities. This gives Opera enough cash to give their browser away, and will probably make them more in the end as their browser is more widely accepted now that it is free. Mozilla does the exact same thing. Google has paid the Mozilla Foundation millions of dollars for Google searches done with Mozilla browsers.

  • It works on all the major platforms... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ThatGeek ( 874983 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:44PM (#14320759) Homepage
    Microsoft doesn't want their stuff to work on all other platforms... After all, they intentionally discontinued work on IE for mac, and have bought several companies only to immediately axe their Linux offerings.

    Microsoft is not a company selling apps, Microsoft is a company selling lock-in. As long as customers are sticking with them, they don't really need to spend "pocket change" to keep up with technology.
    • You must keep in mind that Microsoft has no intention of directly supporting Linux in any sense. If they buy a company because they like its product, why should they spend more of their dollars to continue Linux development?

      I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but you're being rather speculative in assuming that they bought companies specifically to shut down their Linux offerings. It seems more likey to me that they simply wanted the Windows version of the technology then saw no reason to continue Linux d

    • Mosaic (Score:3, Insightful)

      by GoatMonkey2112 ( 875417 )
      Microsoft already covered this when they based IE on Mosaic years ago. Mosaic used to run on more platforms. They could just take the Opera code base and do the same thing they did with Mosaic, knee-cap and labotomize it.

      Seriously though, I think it's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. I don't see why MS should want to sink so much money into something that they already have and don't really make money on anyway. It may be pocket change for MS at this point, but that doesn't mean they should th

      • Re:Mosaic (Score:3, Interesting)

        by utlemming ( 654269 )
        Worst idea? From a standards standpoint, it is a great idea. Opera is perhaps the most standards compliant browser out there. So developers would stop complaining that IE isn't standards compliant.Imagine, all the webmill people would shut up. Further, they could beef up Opera, and give it some access to those belove Microsoft API's, give it the packaging of Microsoft and well, now the browser wars have been won, all over again, before most of mainstream people even knew that that there was an arms built up
    • They weren't selling IE to begin with (well... they were a long long time ago)...

      Why Microsoft should spend $400 Million for something that's going to support their platform either way and is going to be given away is beyond me.

      Microsoft stopped bothering with IE for Mac when OSX stopped making it the default, bundled browser. I can't say as I blame them, Safari came out of the gate at least it's equal and has vaulted past it in terms of speed and reliability. It's hard enough to get people to switch to a g

  • Great idea! (Score:5, Funny)

    by BushCheney08 ( 917605 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:44PM (#14320771)
    Wow! That's the best idea I've ever heard. There should be absolutely no problems shoehorning it into Vista by next year. Way to go, Dvorak! You deserve a raise!

    • Re:Great idea! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by JWW ( 79176 )
      I'm sure they could get it to work in Vista.... As an application.

      Of course if they could do that it'd prove that all the "IEs part of the OS and can't be removed" stuff was bunk. Wheter that's actually provable already is also up for debate.

  • Sure (Score:5, Funny)

    by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:45PM (#14320785) Journal

    Then after the "MS Opera" release, firefox would have even less competition.
  • A nice secondary benefit from acquiring Opera would be all their mobile browsing tech. Am I wrong in thinking they make more dough from the mobile device stuff than the regular browser?

  • Dvorak has apparently forgotten.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by McNally ( 105243 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .yllancmm.> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:45PM (#14320792) Homepage
    Dvorak has apparently forgotten all the work that Microsoft put into stuffing Internet Explorer and its components into every unlikely corner of the Windows operating systems. You can't just easily rip that out and replace it with a new browser..
  • Wasn't it critical to Windows to have IE deeply integrated within? I seem to remember something about it and that MS couldn't easily disentangle it from the bowels...

    But more importantly, IE is, I believ, used as the rendering engine for a whole lotta apps. I imagine the cost of replacing it would be a lot higher than the cost of buying Opera for $400m.

    • M$'s idea of abstracting the network from the individual software (isn't Sun trying that now?) resulted in deep integration of IE into the other Explorer that is the desktop and file-browser.

      If you look at it from an abstract and high enough view, there's little difference to looking at a directory on your hard drive and one on an HTTP or FTP server. *NIX mount points are the kind of the same way; it doesn't matter if its a resource on your system or another.

      The proclimation, however, that the operating e

  • One problem.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MmmmJoel ( 26625 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:46PM (#14320801)
    Opera can be uninstalled.

  • antitrust? (Score:3)

    by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:46PM (#14320804)
    Wouldn't this be in violation of antitrust laws? Microsoft can't just buy out all of their competition out there. I don't think the government would allow it. At least they shouldn't. That's why I like Open Source, Because you can't buy it out. I think this is Microsofts greatest fear. A competitor they can't defeat, simply by buying it out.

  • I always thought Dvorak was an idiot, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:46PM (#14320806)
    This makes me think I overestimated him.

    MS chooses to stop supporting the Mac with IE. For whatever reason, they think that's in their best interest. Now Dvorak thinks that's MS should spend $400M to abandon the browser they've been pushing for 10 years, to buy one that supports an OS they just walked away from.

    MS hasn't even stopped supoport for IE yet, just annouced it. If they changed their mind and think it's such a big mistake, they can continue IE on MacOS.
    • The reason they stopped supporting the Mac (I don't think anyone will really disagree with me) was Safari. Apple made a web browser (and a VERY good one at that) and MS said "We don't want to play".

      Now I should mention that IE for the Mac is a piece of junk, and I assume it was back in 2003 when they stopped activly working on it. It's slow, clunky, and can't hold a candle to Safari or Firefox.

  • But it would be a terrible move from a PR perpective. It would be like admitting they're not able to program a decent browser; they'd look like they're buying the small guy, which many less-than-rational people think is a very bad thing to do; and the user experience would be so much different than what they're used to. Let's not forget Opera has always been years in advance of the competition - heck, they were teh cool way back in version 3.

  • Way too much money, way too little upside... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lpangelrob ( 714473 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:47PM (#14320817)
    If I were Microsoft, with the amount of money it would take to buy Opera, I'd rather just yoink 1.5 stable of Firefox and rebrand it as Internet Explorer. Releasing the code for all changes they make, of course.

    They can stuff it with their links, write in their ActiveX/DLL extensions, make a better Windows-like skin... whatever.

    Of course, I can't imagine them risking putting open source software in such a high-visibility area, but a web developer can dream.

  • 1. Would probably be anti-competitive and may cause more legal problems for MS.

    2. Will make MS look really bad if they can't keep up or rewrite a web browser. The world's largest software company can't handle their own web browser code? Major PR and industry set back.

    3. Would be a waste of almost HALF A BILLION dollars considering the money already put into IE. MS could afford to buy most small countries, but that doesn't mean its a good idea.

    4. Won't do activeX and other MS propriety stuff out of box. The
    • 1. Would probably be anti-competitive and may cause more legal problems for MS.

      Opera isn't even a blip on the radar as far as competition goes for IE. Firefox, with all its publicity, is still in the minority of browsers. Also, when you're talking about free ($) products, I'm not sure the anti-competition clauses even come into play.

      2. Will make MS look really bad if they can't keep up or rewrite a web browser. The world's largest software company can't handle their own web browser code? Major PR and indust
  • Dvorak is an idiot.

    Why would MS purchase Opera when they have a relatively stable web browser of their own for free? They'll spend far less than $400M fixing issues and adding features to IE, and the best part for them is that they're already familiar with it and are used to working with it.

    If MS were to do anything with a new browser, they'd be smart to branch Firefox and develop an open source version that can do the things they want it to do (ActiveX). Or they could just continue working on IE7, which

  • Dvorak just needs to go away... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Svartalf ( 2997 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:48PM (#14320847) Homepage
    He's just another utterly clueless pundit. To have them buy Opera is to admit that they didn't have what it takes to secure and extend the thing. MS flatly won't be inclined to do that if they can help it- this suggestion is in the same class as saying MS ought to do a Linux version of MS Office.
    • He's just another utterly clueless pundit. To have them buy Opera is to admit that they didn't have what it takes to secure and extend the thing. MS flatly won't be inclined to do that if they can help it- this suggestion is in the same class as saying MS ought to do a Linux version of MS Office.

      Yup. That and there's nothing inherently wrong with IE that MS doesn't basically refuse to fix. There's no patent's they'd be buying. Opera doesn't have (now) anything that other browsers don't or can't figure o

  • Not compatible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wombatmobile ( 623057 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:49PM (#14320853)
    Unlikely. Opera isn't compatible with Microsoft's business strategy since it implements web standards [webstandards.org].

  • Note to Self... (Score:3, Funny)

    by srock2588 ( 827871 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:50PM (#14320866) Journal
    1. Write some code 2. Slip Dvorak some free booze 3. Get bought by Microsoft for "pocket change" 4. Move to Grand Cayman
  • I don't know how much Microsoft needs the browser but Opera has (had?) some great developers. They don't get the credit they deserve for innovation (the market price for web browsers has always been zero, so almost no one has seen Opera) but they introduced a lot of new stuff including, IIRC, both tabbed browsing and popup blocking (later popularized by Galeon and Konqueror, respectively).

    • Opera developers (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:09PM (#14321104)
      Opera has (had?) some great developers. They don't get the credit they deserve for innovation

      Now THERE you're really hitting the point, but not even completely. It's not just their innovating new features, but the performance they're able to achieve with their application. The speed and memory requirements are fantastic compared to everything else out there. IE and FF can't touch Opera for memory usage OR speed (in most cases).

      I just wish it's renderer was better; it produces goofy results too often. I'd like to see them take the Gecko renderer and run it through the Opera-resource-debigulator(tm) and use that in Opera. I'd also like them to make an email client that doesn't require 30Meg of RAM, and actually performs at a reasonable speed. Ugh. Let's hope Thunderbird 1.5 is a big improvement in the performance arena, though I have no hope it'll be anything other than worse in the resource requirements arena.
  • If this happening, the biggest loser might be Mozilla Firefox since many consider Opera to not only be the best browser available, but the fastest and the one with the best page rendering engine.

    If someone had posted something like this on Slashdot he would've promptly been slapped with a -1 flamebait.

    The smart move for the company would be for Microsoft to discard the entire code base of Internet Explorer and buy the Opera browser (from Norway) outright and use it instead.

    Not that it has ever stopped

  • I say bullshit. GOOGLE should buy Opera. Google at least is MUCH quicker at real-time updating of user interfacing with the world.

    On top of that, if the web-based apps become the new OS environment, then Google and Opera would be a finer marriage than Opera being bought and destroyed by ms' hands.

    C'mon. How is ms a good thing for us and for Opera users???!!!
  • Opera is already designed to appear to Web sites as Internet Explorer. This feature was added to prevent sites from blocking non-Microsoft browsers from capturing data and downloading.

    This sounds like the closest thing to a Borg assimilation that I have ever heard.
    Only another daring Enterprise can stop it from becoming part of the collective.
  • Now that they've innovated IE into the core of Windows I don't see how they can replace it with another browser.

    Integrating IE tightly into Windows wasn't just a way to flout the antitrust rulings, it was a Really Good Idea (tm).

  • There is a deliberate reason why IE sucks... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Serveert ( 102805 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:54PM (#14320930)
    Microsoft doesn't want a very nice UI for the web unless they control it. If the standards supported a nice neat replacement for your typical win32 gui then Microsoft is pretty much out of business as they currently stand. It's inevitable that the web GUI encroaches on win32 GUI applitions hence why MS is getting more and more into online services. The writing is on the wall and they'll resist the writing as long as possible - which means a crippled IE with lagging features for all of us.

  • Why so much Dvorak (Score:5, Insightful)

    by guaigean ( 867316 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @03:59PM (#14320985)
    Why does Dvorak even make it on here? I'm not trying to troll, just noticing that every Dvorak post made is a HUGE flamewar against his ignorance in computing. I mean, sure, he can have his opinion. But why does it make slashdot EVERY single time he makes a comment?

  • From MarketWatch: Opera Software trades on the Oslo Stock Exchange for around 21 Norwegian Kroner or about $3 a share. Microsoft could buy the whole company for less than $400 million.

    Now if the Norwegians were smart, they'd put Opera up on eBay, to drive up the price. I can see MS and Firefox duking it out, and then Google comes along and snatches it away from both of them at the last second!

  • I'm not so sure they would, although perhaps as a publicly-traded company they wouldn't have a whole lot of choice. Maybe they could poison-pill their stock, call in Google as their saviour.
  • Opera also introduced tabbed browsing and other cool features since adopted by Firefox but not, as yet, implemented by Microsoft.
    I'm not sure if it is his poor sentence structure or if he is trying to imply that Opera copied Firefox's tabs. Opera was the first to have tabs in Opera 6.0 (many years ago).

    Curiously, Opera is already designed to appear to Web sites as Internet Explorer. This feature was added to prevent sites from blocking non-Microsoft browsers from capturing data and downloading.
    Dvor
  • There's only one smart reason for Microsoft to buy Opera: to stop Google from buying it or forming a Google/Opera partnership that locks MS out.

    Firefox is not a threat to MS. Opera is not a threat to MS. But Google has enough verve and popularity to potentially get a Google-branded Opera browser into the hands of the masses.
  • Observation: MS decides to cede the Mac OS to Firefox and Safari.
    Conclusion: MS should totally abandon 10 years of IE development and research and go buy Opera.

    Nice job there Dvorak. While we're on the subject, why don't you go trade off your car because it's due for a tune up. Or better yet, sell your house because the furnace needs replaced.

    Seriously, is this what it takes to get hits these days? Christ this is Weekly World News quality. Why doesn't he just start writing about Bill and Bigfoots lo

  • Can't see it... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Pyrosz ( 469177 )
    I can't see that happening, giving up on IE would show people that its not viable for anything anymore and they would lose people who wouldn't come back for the "new" IE browser.

    If they did buy Opera, I would stop using it in a second and go with Firefox. I would be very sad to lose such an amazing browser. Thankfully, I don't see this as a problem.

  • MS should buy Dvorak (Score:5, Funny)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:04PM (#14321054)
    It'd just be funny, is all.

    He could be their mascot, and beat up the Linux penguin and the Mac... whatever the hell that thing is in the Mac logo.

  • Let me give my opinion on the notion that MS should acquite Opera with an oddly appropriate Scrubs reference:

    Mistaaaaaaaaaaake!!!
  • Ho-ho-ho, this wouldn't be the festive season without a good laugh from the world's wackiest columnist. Probably the best idea would be for Microsoft to buy John C. Dvorak and hastily patent that little portrait picture atop column. Dvorak would cost Microsoft chump change and he can be guaranteed to work across all three major platforms and a host of minor ones with almost no reconfiguration at all. A laugh is a laugh in any language and, heck, you only need a browser to read it.
  • This article shows that Dvorak is blowing hot air.

    Dvorak claims that IE doesn't support tabbed browsing, but he doesn't allude to the very well-known features that are being included in IE 7. IE 7 supports tabbed browsing and is available in a private beta. (I'm using it right now.) Microsoft also is creating a Phishing filter. (I don't know what kind of anti-phishing effort Opera is making.)

    Personally, I see a browser as something like a car stereo. IE and Safari are "stock"; Opera and Firefox are "

  • I think it makes more sense for Google to buy them [blindmindseye.com] because of the close ties that Firefox and Opera have with them. Not only that, but it gives Google a credible product for mobile platforms and a way of pushing their search engine on mobile devices the way that Microsoft uses Internet Explorer to push MSN on desktop PC and laptop users that use Windows.

    Besides, it would only add a lot of confusion for Microsoft's developers. Now, if Microsoft were to make it so that Opera's rendering engine became a rep

  • t works on all the major platforms including the Mac

    Not after MS buys it.

    Btw, does Opera even support ActiveX, FrontPage extensions, and all the other elements of MS E^3?

  • Dvorak wrote: Curiously, Opera is already designed to appear to Web sites as Internet Explorer.

    The same was true for NCSA Mosaic. And Mosaic became - you guessed it - the Microsoft Internet Explorer. :-)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer [wikipedia.org]

  • Dvorak is a fool. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NoMoreNicksLeft ( 516230 ) <john.oylerNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:41PM (#14321519) Journal
    IE was woven into the codebase for Windows itself. I doubt Microsoft has the talent to untangle it, even with Vista.

    Or maybe they wouldn't, and just leave the bloat there, with another userland application plonked down on top of it. Would be their style.

  • Weak Argument... IE's Future is Much Different (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ThinkFr33ly ( 902481 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:51PM (#14321635)
    As usual, Dvorak's knowledge of the topic at hand is shallow and his conclusions are simplistic and short sighted.

    Microsoft is not interesting in gaining browser market share outside of the Windows platform. Sure, they might be able to steer more people toward MSN and thereby make more in advertising revenue, but how much more? If 90% of the market already uses Windows, and gaining that extra 10% is fairly difficult for a wide variety of reasons, it may not be worth it to them.

    Even if it was, it has nothing to do with why Microsoft dropped support for the Mac. The direction Microsoft is taking IE is different than the direction everybody else is taking web browsers. Microsoft sees IE as an application that will allow users to access both web pages and smart client applications.

    They see the future as a mesh of standard web apps and smart client applications created with things like ClickOnce [microsoft.com] (at first), and eventually IE-hosted Avalon [microsoft.com] applications. (WPF.) Their hope is that eventually the line between web apps and client apps will blur, and since it will be (they hope) via IE and Avalon, it will draw even more people to using Windows since the UI/functionality experience is so much better than standard web applications. At least that's the business point of view.

  • Why such a bad idea? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pavera ( 320634 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @04:52PM (#14321648) Homepage Journal
    All the posts here are saying this would be a terrible idea but no one has mentioned why.

    Yeah it would suck because MS would inevitably discontinue opera on all platforms besides windows, rename it, integrate it into the OS and make it uninstallable, and, then, MS would really have the best browser offering, and we'd all have nothing left to complain about.

    But, that is why it would be such a good move. Fixing IE is gonna take alot of developer time and money, probably about as much as they'd pay to purchase Opera. Yeah, to fit into MS's strategy they'd have to completely hobble Opera and basically destroy all the good things about it.. But, they'd get a secure, fast, bloat free, feature rich browser that was coherently developed.

    I think you're all opposed to the idea because it would be about the worst thing that could happen to OSS/Mozilla/Firefox. It would be a complete slap in the face, and it would destroy Firefox's momentum overnight. I'm against the idea too, cause I like opera, and it would be sad to see it destroyed by MS, but I don't think its a bad idea for MS. I think it would be about the most intelligent/strategic thing they could do right now.

    One post mentioned "why spend money on something that you don't make money on" well they've been spending money every year for developers to build IE it doesn't seem to be a problem, another poster said "why spend money on something you already have" MS doesn't have an Opera-calibur browser, and making IE an opera-calibur browser is going to take alot of time and money.

    I think MS is really pretty scared about the competition from google, from the web finally starting to matter in a real way. As MS loses market share in browsers, they lose hits to msn.com. honestly how many of you firefox users have your homepage set to msn.com? But IE comes with msn.com as the default homepage on every computer I've ever used. That loss of hits costs them money. They have no choice but to try to maintain 90%+ browser market share, if they were to drop to 50% market share, they'd really be hurting. I don't think anyone uses msn.com through an active choice... People choose to use Yahoo, Google, whatever, the only people who use msn.com are those who haven't changed their default home page. In short MS's only competitive advantage on the web is that they have a huge userbase that uses their browser... If they lose that, they lose everything else on the web, everyone will be at Google or Yahoo.

  • flase premise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bokmann ( 323771 ) on Thursday December 22, 2005 @05:05PM (#14321796) Homepage
    His entire argument is predicated upon the false premises that Microsoft wants to support open standards and that they want to support the Mac.

    Microsoft has virtually bottomless resources - if they really wanted to, they could crank out a secure cross-platform web browser that supported relevant standards. What Microsoft has is exactly what they want - vendor lock-in with a mediocre product that through its various 'feature-driven' incompatibilities gives them some sense of control.

    If Mircosoft can't own the roads, they want to own the potholes.

  • Microsoft HAS bought Opera!? (Score:3, Informative)

    by baadger ( 764884 ) on Friday December 23, 2005 @06:27AM (#14325603)
    http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=conte nt&task=view&id=2108 [cooltechzone.com]

    Please please please tell me this is wrong.

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