IE The Great Microsoft Blunder? 643
JordanL writes "Hot on the heels of the beta rollouts of IE 7, comes an editorial from John Dvorak declaring IE the biggest mistake Microsoft has ever made. From the article: 'All the work that has to go into keeping the browser afloat is time that could have been better spent on making Vista work as first advertised [...] If you were to put together a comprehensive profit-and-loss statement for IE, there would be a zero in the profits column and billions in the losses column--billions.'"
Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other possible revenue streams for Microsoft IE include toolbar buttons and bookmarks, as well as the licensing of Internet Explorer to AOL and other companies to use as their default browser. Whether IE is profitable or not is still a mystery, but I definitely wouldn't say it has been a zero for Microsoft.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft bundles IE with Windows to leverage Windows' monopoly to gain marketshare for IE. Once IE has high marketshare, then Microsoft can control indirectly the website developers. Have you ever noticed how many websites are written to accommodate the bugs in IE?
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Funny)
Features, man, they're FEATURES!!
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, the tab mix plus toolbar adds frivilous non-features? The ability to reorder tabs, or "un-close" tabs should one mistakenly close the wrong one, and the ability to lock a tab in place are all non-features?
Likewise: the web developer adds other frivilous non-features: one can resize the browser window to a specific size, clear HTTP authentication, clear the cache, clear history, outline any given element type, validate HTML against standards, display HTTP headers (basically, the HTTP response code and other server information), display element metadata, highlight broken images (broken images are not always readily apparant), modify CSS on the fly, disable certain standard browser features, and so forth. Yeah, frivilous non-features, most of which are absolutely NO help at all in debugging web applications and web sites in general. Useless non-feature, I'll give you that!
User agent switcher: can be used to spoof MSIE or Safari in order to make Firefox work with banks and ecommerce sites which have been hard-coded to expect one of those two browsers, despite being 100% compatible with Firefox. Yep, another useless non-feature.
DOM Inspector: an extension which adds the non-feature of being able to browse the document object model. It's not as though you actually need to know how address an element in order to manipulate it using Javascript. Yes, folks, another frivilous non-feature brought to you courtesy of a useless Firefox extension!
Colorzilla: a color picker which is obviously not useful at all for web developers.
Have fun slamming the Mozilla team, but check the above before spreading the FUD above. You should quit wasting time spreading FUD, check your facts, and criticise the Firefox folks over legitimate issues.
katse(at)biyn(dot)com
Re:Definitely not 0 profit.. LOL well. Dvorak. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dvorak is right: the expense of IE development could have been spent elsewhere, and MS would be none the worse off if they bundled somebody else's browser. Actually, Spyglass WAS somebody else's browser -- MS just got carried away with modifications. On the other hand, there is some Monday morning quarterbacking going on here. MS tried to "embrace and extend" the Internet. That approach works great when you have only incomplete standards and some room to maneuver. But nobody needed MS to "extend" HTTP.
If MS knew how the world would evolve, they would never have bothered with IE. But nobody knew for sure at the time. The early browsers were resource-intensive by the standards of the day; they were designed for X-windows workstations. I can understand why MS would want to get something light enough to run on typical PC hardware. The early versions of Mosaic for Windows required Win32S and more memory than most people had. Netscape was better, but there was still plenty of room for improvement. Besides, just about every product MS ever created had to displace an entrenched competitor in order to survive. They must have thought IE would do the same -- even if they had to give it away.
I run Windows XP Pro. Occasionally I get stuck running IE when I have to visit a retarded website that requires it. The default settings of MSN and the toolbar links lasted about 90 seconds after the first boot. I never signed up for any service because of anything IE did. MS additional profit by give me IE: $0.00. Yet their reputation for security and stability lives in infamy, thanks largely to IE and ActiveX plugins that let spyware and viruses play right through.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft would not allow themselves to be dependent upon someone else for such a critical piece of their strategy.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft would need to maintain it themselves. So what would that really get them? The web is written for IE, it would be a major amount of work to "downgrade" FireFox to emulate IE's bugs.
Additionally, a major downside is that it validates FireFox, a competitor.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:3, Interesting)
True enough but I can't help feeling they have lost focus. They developed IE ot "take over the web" but that's failed. What are they developing IE for now? I think they developed IE7 simply to save face.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm... tell that to Quicken or any number of other software apps which use IE for the UI solution. IE isn't just a browser - it's the HTML rendering component for the entire OS. And at the time it was first being developed, Netscape's HTML renderer wasn't componentized - which is yet another reason why they lost the browser wars and both AOL and Quicken went with IE instead of Netscape.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit? (Score:3, Interesting)
That didn't stop MS from trying [slashdot.org].
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3)
"People don't want bug fixes, they want new features."
-William Henry Gates, III
With that in mind and as to why they have Patch Tuesday when someone has stitched a sampler proclaiming "We are a monopoly!" hanging on the wall, perhaps it's what will happen to the stock [if they don't].
That's called dumping. (Score:4)
I'd like to see M$ own up to such a strategy because it's against the law. It may be true and they have been convicted of it, but they had better not admit to it.
Dorvak's accusation forces M$ to admit anti-competitive practices or lose face on Wall Street. The second rate nature of both their browser and OS are now apparent. The only way to justify continued profits in the face of superior and less expensive competitors is to promise monopoly rents. Investors should be aware in either case. A company that screws it's customers is not much better to it's employees or investors.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
In order for the general consumer to be able to make the choice between available free and non free web browsers, something has to be bundled with Windows to allow them to obtain whatever they choose.
The fact that the average consumer will quite happily sit with IE because it's already there isn't Microsofts fault.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
The profit there was HUGE. It still is.
Billions? Easily.
Keeping people from looking at alternatives in one field helps keep them from looking at alternatives in other fields, like their biggest cash cow - the office suite.
Now that the browser isn't sufficient to keep people locked in (and now that browser-based apps are a threat to their underlying platofrm monopoly), they wish it would die, so they can lock people in with their latest strategy - dot.net. That's why, originally, there wasn't going to be an IE7.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Funny)
troll, dvorak (ie stupid idiot)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anybody else noticing how many aricles are being tagged "troll"? Won't make for a very good indexing mechanism is every third article has the same keyword...
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupid Idiot? (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid idiots have low WIS and INT scores. Smart idiots have high INT but low WIS.
</nerd>
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:4, Interesting)
See, that's where you're an idiot. (I was going to just say wrong, but it doesn't express how I feel very well.) Marketing is all about logic. One of the key datums in marketing is that people make decisions based on emotion, not on logic. Oh sure, some people develop a logical system for evaluating purchases and then stick to it zealously, which allows them to make logical decisions, but most people vote for the better-looking candidate and buy the car that looks fast, regardless of actual suitability.
Marketing exists in the really real world, not your slashdot fantasy world. Actually, it exists here too, if you don't have adblock or something. And it wouldn't exist here if it didn't work to some degree.
Logic dictates that Microsoft is getting something out of maintaining IE.
P.S. I work in a marketing department but I'm a longtime and very dedicated computer geek. Look at the number of /. posts I've made if you don't believe me :P
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:4, Insightful)
If someone wants to sell some shit, and they know they can influence people, and their business is about making money, then using marketing is a logical decision.
It doesn't make anyone do anything. It puts notions in the heads of the unconscious. Propaganda was the subject of my middle school english class, and ever since I've consciously examined every advertisement I don't immediately dismiss, looking for their methods and motivations. It doesn't mean I'm immune to marketing, but I am much more resistant. (Also, I think most geeks are very specification-oriented, and so they are less vulnerable to marketing in general.)
Come do it if you can.
But more cogently, it serves to stimulate the economy. And without marketing, no one would ever sell anything anywhere but locally, so it also enables the economy.
I have a supporting role in a marketing department - I query the database. I also do the website. Guess what? Websites are marketing, if they're associated with a business or product. I guess businesses and products shouldn't have webpages, huh?
Riiiiight. It would sell itself to people who might not even be aware that it exists? Marketing is about more than just convincing people that they need something that they have no use for. It's also about getting the message out about your products so that people who already have a use for what you're selling have an opportunity to find out about it, and then possibly buy it from you.
You are a classic example of why some people shouldn't be allowed to think on their own - you don't actually complete the thought.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also chances are the IE development team are completely separate to the Vista one, and have a different skill set. By developing IE, Microsoft has an HTML engine that suits their needs, without having to rely on some third-party. If you look around Windows XP, you will soon realise how much actually relies on that engine.
The problems with Vista are probably bad management and trying to do too much in one go. If you look at one of the competitors, Apple, then you will see that they bring things out in managable increments. Sure it is $120 a year, but at least it is available and out there.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Another person suggested I should be using the term "value-add". The truth I think is somewhere in between, though. People ARE buying windows because of IE - if it didn't have a web browser, and all the competition did, more people would probably be using other operating systems. Like it or not, a web browser is a crucial part of the computer-using experience and users expect it to come with the OS.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Opera uses Google as a default search engine because of a smart bussiness deal.
MS could easily do the same.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but if Microsoft didn't *own* IE then the OEMs (like Dell or HP) would be the ones that decided how the browser was configured.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with IE is that it is linked to the OS, which is why security exploits in IE are the biggest headache for microsoft. Hell, I love Apache. I view it as pretty secure. But there is no way in hell I'd pick up an OS where Apache was an inextricable part of the kernel. The very idea is absurd...Apache touches the internet, therefore, it is a security problem. End of story. IE touches the internet, therefore it is a security problem. Firefox, Opera, it doesn't matter. Burglars couldn't get into your house if you had no doors or windows.
I think Dvorak is 100% correct (first time for me)...If they used any other browser, they could lay half their security problems at it's feet. They could point the finger, and shake their heads, and talk about how secure their system is and how, if they built a browser, it would be completely secure and oh-so-functional. Instead they look awful, and their browser is a technological fossil.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:4, Funny)
Um, if your house doesn't have windows or doors the burglars can just walk in.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, that's incorrect.
Current exterior wall construction for a large portion of the housing market consists of (from the outside-in)vinyl siding, Tyvek vapor barrier, a fibrous type sheathing (sometimes no more than 1/8" thick cardboard), glass fiber insulation, and gypsum wallboard. All of these material are easily cut with a $1.99 utility knife.
You can get into most houses these days with a knife and 5 minutes by going right through the wall.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Funny)
Just make sure there aren't any electrical conduit where you're making your hole. That might make it less fun.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Funny)
That is a bit self-centred of you - it would be great fun for all the people watching you.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Funny)
5 minutes is 4 minutes and 50 seconds too long in a yard with a 120lb mastiff on the prowl.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Chris Mattern
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, Microsoft could have perfectly well bundled Netscape with Windows (or even bought Netscape with pocket change) back in the 1990s and probably have done so for far less than the cost of developing IE. I think buying Netscape (in which case Netscape's web servers could have become IIS) would be the only way it would have been considered. Why we didn't go that way is an interesting question. I have no idea what the answer is.
You may have noticed that Microsoft isn't big on bundling others' software, and when they do, it's always fully branded and user-transparent. I think acquiring Netscape is the only way anyone would have considered bundling it as the official Windows browser. Who knows? Maybe we did approach Netscape about either a buyout or a branding deal and they told us to get stuffed? I've never heard anything like that, and it's not often that a company declines to be acquired by Microsoft, but I suppose it's not impossible.
Now, combine that lack of enthusiasm for bundling third-party products with the culture of Owning what you work on, and you get why (in my opinion) Microsoft would not have bundled Netscape unless it owned the company lock, stock, and barrel: you could technically lay any security problems at Netscape's feet, but our corporate culture wouldn't want to. Plus, even if we did, our customers wouldn't buy that. They'd say "You shipped it, it's your problem. Don't tell me to email Netscape for support." Anybody's customers would say that. If you sold it to them, you'd better be able to support it, even if it's a third-party product.
Finally, there's a lot of "not invented here" syndrome that runs around our company. It seems to me (I'm fairly new here, so if you've been around longer, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) if we don't have it, we're either going to buy someone who does have it or we're going to write it ourselves.
IE has certainly had its problems over the years, and has of late been feature-poor compared to other browsers. Heck, until IE 7 betas started coming out, I even used other browsers unless someone was watching, and I still most often do because I'm very used to Firefox now. However, IE 7 is honestly a good browser. Beta 1 was usable, beta 2 is slick, and both are extremely fast, render well, and have a good, minimal interface. And finally, they support tabs! That was the huge missing feature. The first time I ever used a tabbed browser was the last time I could stand to not use one. It's just that much better. IE 7 is going to be very good. Far fewer windows users will find themselves with a reason to install Firefox instead of IE7. I expect Firefox will rise to the challenge and also become better and faster and it will benefit the industry as a whole, but there's no question about it: IE 7 is raising the bar.
Overall, do I think IE was a mistake? No. It's true that I'm a n00b here, but as others have pointed out, IE was a good loss leader for our business that allows us to generate revenue in other areas, such as MSN. Was bundling it in the OS a mistake? Well, that's another issue . I hear there's a lot of decoupling of IE in Vista. You be the judge
Notes: I don't work on either IE or Windows, so my opinions are reasonably objective, but they do tend to support our products over the competition, naturally enough.
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft has testified in court [salon.com] that IE cannot be separated from the "Core OS", whatever that means.
Therefore, what you say cannot be true
QED
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:3, Interesting)
"If you call a cow's tail a leg, how many legs does a cow have?"
"Four. Calling it so doesn't make it so."
-A. Lincoln
Was it that time in front of the judge or another where the judge spent about fifteen minutes on his own and performed the disconnection [successfully]? (he probably had instructions, but he still did it)
Besides, remember when they claimed 95, 98, 98SE, and 98ME weren't based upon the DOS shell and [instead] were standalone systems? Yet as part of the XP release ceremony, WHG III sat d
Re:Definitely not 0 profit... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's new? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's new? (Score:5, Insightful)
C'mon, didn't you ever use the TRS-80 BASIC interpreter? Didn't everyone? It worked great, and was a MS product, IIRC. I think it was Micro-Soft basic 4.5 from what I remember.
I never used the BASIC compiler for the PC, but I think it was supposed to be pretty cool. Again it worked as promised. Of course, it was cloned from an IBM product, but then what's new?
Oh, wait - you already said that.
Nevermind.
Re:What's new? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's new? (Score:3, Insightful)
Their problem is that they start the marketing blitz while it still IS an idea with the idea that they can deliver anything they want... and then they fail. Over and over and over.
Most development processes I know is that a team of people talk the idea over, spec it out, run through basic functionality an
Microsofts biggest blunder? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure what he means by biggest, but microsoft's stupidist blunder was Bob [guidebookgallery.org] and its most expensive blunder was the Cairo project [computerworld.com] (Cairo was later renamed and one of its most important element, OFS, is still nowhere in sight).
Internet exporer was not so much of a blunder as an expensive way to kill off Netscape (they were a much bigger threat then Dvorak makes out.
(the OT part) Still, at least Microsoft Bob was not a completely wasted effort - after all, you still have Rover the retriever [guidebookgallery.org] to help you with searching in XP - and we all know that was worth waiting 10 years for...
Re:Microsofts biggest blunder? (Score:5, Insightful)
IE is just a shell around libraries which do parsing of content and rendering. These are used throughout Windows including Outlook, parts of Office, the Windows Update infrastructure, etc. These have to be accounted for when making a loss/profit assessment. If it was not for IE, Outlook would have never reached its near universal penetration. Where Outlook and IE go, Office, Exchange, Departamental intranet servers on IIS with HTML written by people on crack follow. All of these depend on IE in one form or another. All of these are commercial products and cost a pretty penny.
IE may be a loss, but it is a classic example of a well executed loss leader. If it was not for IE most of the remaining MSFT clutter would have had to be considerably better quality and less expensive to actually sell.
Re:Microsofts biggest blunder? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why did Microsoft care what browser people used?
Operating systems can be replaced by higher level operating systems. BIOS stood for (used to, they changed it in the 90s) basic integrated operating system. BIOS was a full on (but limited) OS. Microsoft figured out how to use BIOS to boot DOS, a higher level OS. Later they figured out how to get DOS to boot Windows. Thus they knew operating systems could be replaced, they'd done it: BIOS > DOS > Windows (until they jettisoned DOS in 2000).
They were afraid the internet was going to do this again. And Netscape would be basically an OS on top of Windows. The problem was this: if everyone develops for Netscape, not for Windows, then Windows wouldn't matter (just like who makes your BIOS doesn't matter now). Microsoft was terrified that Windows would get built over. Then they couldn't charge much for Windows (because it wouldn't be that important). So they did their darndest to kill Netscape and force IE on everyone else.
Getting rid of the Apple Problem
Macintosh threatened to throw a wrench in their plans. Even if Apple went out of business, someone would buy it up and still offer Macs. Because there was another viable platform, many early developers felt they should work for compatibility with both Mac and Windows. There was no IE for Macintosh and even if there had been, Microsoft needed a way to get Mac users to use it. If IE wasn't default for all major platforms, IE wouldn't be the standard, it would be a standard.*
Luck was on Microsft's side. They had been killing Apple's revenue for sometime and Apple was willing to partner with anyone to survive. For Microsoft it was worth $150 million to make IE the de facto standard that it remains to this day. For Apple is was worth accepting IE to survive to try and fight again.
So what about Netscape?
Tying means using one product to sell another. Tying is like selling a copier and forcing (contractually or with technology) the consumer to get the copier serviced by you as well. This example is an actual case - Kodak did this. Tying is not bundling (for example selling Office rather than Excel or Powerpoint alone. Bundling is fine). Tying is per se illegal - if you are found to be tying, you are wrong, no debate - bundling is fine.
I don't think there was any doubt in Microsoft's mind that bolting IE to the OS was "tying." The problem for Microsoft was that permanently bolting IE to Windows (and making it default) was the only way to unseat the current king of the internet, Netscape. It worked. And then they got slapped with an anti-trust suit for guess what... tying.
During the trial a Princeton computer scientist got the Windows code via a court order and found that by removing two lines of code (from the source of Win98) you could get rid of IE. So Netscape presented this in court. Microsoft's rebuttal was a video, showing that by removing these two lines of code Windows crashed. When the prosecutors looked into this they found this was two different videos spliced together (thanks Ballmer). Guess what?
They were found guilty. Judge Penfield Jackson was furious. He'd been annoyed by Bill Gates' irritated deposition. Gates had been ornery and not very helpful, but this put Jackson over the top. So Jackson wrote a scathing decision and Microsoft was supposed to be split into three companies. Because this decision was so harsh when the change of administration came, they refused to enforce it.
So Microsoft won. They got IE to be the standard everyone uses when developing for the web and no penalties for it (if you don't think IE is the de facto standard, make your site incompatible with IE and, unless it is slashdot, don't expect to get much return traffic). Microsoft now has new pressure again - from alternate web browsers and from alternate operating systems. But there is a new savior on the horizon for them - trusted computing. If they succeed with the vendor lock-in trusted computing allows they'll never go out of business.
billions.... (Score:2, Insightful)
the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
And the ClearType on by default is ridiculous.
At least I didn't do any stupid IE hacks with the sites I've developed for work - so everything works fine, except now with ClearType on by default, all the text looks bold, so many of our text links simply look like regular text. Nice UI move there, MS. *grumpy*
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Non-bolded text should stay non-bolded in applications unless you specifically configure something that way. That's another convention.
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
The interface for IE 7 was not thought through at all.
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
You can enable them!. Look here! [lmame-bug.com]. The menu is placed between the address bar and the tab bar. The tab and the address bar are both related with the page you're viewing, the menu is not. It's probably the worst place to put such menu: you want to keep such elements in the same place. But hey, this is microsoft - some reviewer will argue that it has sense.
The UI of IE7 was designed very carefully. They just don't know to do it right. Look at the the latest paul thurrot's vista review:
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_
(Try to guess which is the active window)
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_
("File operations"! great!)
I've enought problems to make people understand XP (why the extension->program associations are placed under "carpet options"???? Why i need to look at the taskwork's properties to delete the list of recently opened files in the start menu??? Why some visual effects are on the "my pc->properties" window, others in the display's properties and some duplicated in both?? Oh, and wait: in IE7 beta 2 you configure cd-auto-startup in IE's advanced properties). I can't wait for vista, it looks like they'd be trying to be better than mac os x but they keep falling in the second-system syndrome. It's so bad when it comes to usability that is laughable - most of the people knows windows just because they're taugh the basic operations in the school.
Look at how many XP/office training courses are in your city. It's so fucking bad that people can make money with it.
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, they're eliminating those too.
Have you seen Windows Messenger Live Beta? Or Windows Media Player 10? They are moving towards having the three or four most important actions in the tool bar (like "Change the color scheme of this window" or "Get your own space on Spaces"), and everything else is accessed from a "menu" button hidden up there with minimize, and close.
Personally, I'm mixed on this idea: I hate having to try to find the menu, and wonder where in there they have hidden what I want to do. On the other hand, I've noticed that the stripped down versions of IE, Word, etc. on my PDA have only a small number of menu items, and it's really nice not having all that extra crap.
Reading over what I just wrote, I had a thought: maybe I hate the new candy look and hiding the standard menus. I also hate product bloat. There, that's better, when I put it that way, MS can't do anything right.
E.
Retraining Costs? (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for the bogus issue of retraining costs keeping people from using free software. People waiting for Vista should just put GNU/Linux on their current hardware.
Re:Nobody can resist propagating FUD. (Score:4, Interesting)
Opera is the most customisable interface I've ever encountered, and not just browsers.
Fair play. I was referring more to the IE7 interface compared with the goofy default layout of Opera's UI. You're very correct in how customizable Opera's UI is - although it's often EXTREMELY obfuscated as to how to customize many things. Nevertheless, what you want to customize can almost always be done in Opera, though it'll take some requests for help in the forums.
Not so with IE7, as far as I can tell. I can add, remove, and rearrange stuff on the toolbar, but I can't move the toolbar into different locations, as I could with previous versions of IE.
I'm hoping this isn't the final UI form. If it is, then it's taken several large steps backwards in UI customizability from previous versions of IE.
It's not like it's a big deal to me, since even with all its nifty new features (well, new to IE), I'll still be using Firefox, but the ClearType issue fucking up font display is going to mess with the usability of some of the sites I've designed, which is really irritating.
As far as Opera, I'm eagerly awaiting the final release of 9. I'm hoping I can customize it enough to use it as my main email client, as I freaking hate Thunderbird (and Outlook and Outlook Express, and, and, and...) I'd like the Hugin and Munin [opera.com] scripts updated for version 9.
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, you can turn off CSS in your browser to make the web look like shit, but I'd hazard a guess that nobody at all
Re:the new IE7 Beta 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
From the grandparent's initial description links looked like normal text because all text appeared bold.
If this looks like a link to you, to many it won't, so I just replied with that information in mind.
I also use orange or yellow or green links, but there's a thin border you don't have to cross and you have to keep things relatively consistent with the world around you by underlining the links and havin
Re:ClearType isn't the problem (Score:4, Informative)
Don't Reply (Score:5, Insightful)
DO NOT REPLY TO THIS STORY. Dvorak is not that stupid. He's just tweaking the tech community to see if he can get a response. To date, the tech community has been as predictable as Marty McFly.
If you really want to understand Dvorak, pick apart the post I made [slashdot.org] on his last big story. I think you'll understand him a lot better if you can take a clinical look at his sudden and inexplicable leaps of logic. It's what he does, and he's damn good at it.
I know its hard to resist the Dvorak trolling, but you need to consider one thing: He's not listening to you. He doesn't even care about your opinion. His crazy theories are keeping the money flowing, and that's good enough. Arguing with his drivel is simply wasting your time.
Re:Don't Reply (Score:2)
He does have a feeling you're starting to tune him out though. FTA:
[emphasis added]
Please, for the love of God, continue reading or else I'll have to get a real job instead of being
Absolutely! (Someone mod parent up) (Score:2)
Re:Don't Reply (Score:2)
Opinions that differ from yours aren't "Trolling". As for his crazy theories, if they are that crazy just ignore him.
Reply: Yes, he is that stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reply: Yes, he is that stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Reply: Yes, he is that stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
( * Read More... * 249 of 299 comments )
If they hadn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but we don't know what would have happened had they left netscape to dominate the market. Netscape might have taken over the world by now and enslaved us all!
Thank god for IE.
Puts on flame retardinate uniform (Score:2)
Or I should say flamebait? Good god.
Dvorak is right, except... (Score:5, Insightful)
A Conundrum (Score:2)
King of the World (Score:2)
That leads to a tunnel vision in a bizarre way that doesn't allow rational business analysis to proceed and get carried out in practice.
It also leads them to litigation (read Bill's father's advice), when settlement would often be the wisest choice
Dvorak, same as usual, all wet (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect the coding effort in IE is about 3% of that invested in XP and Vista. Where does he get the $billions cost from? A web browser is a biggish program, but many lone hackers have written one in under one person/year.
Re:Dvorak, same as usual, all wet (Score:3, Funny)
Can we please have a moratorium on Dvorak's BS... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Web was threatening to become a client independent client platform.
Netscape looked like it would make a ton of money.
Microsoft had no significant web presence as a portal.
Now?
MSN is a huge portal.
Netscape is dead
And the web is a significant client-independant-client, as long as that client is Internet Explorer, which only runs on Windows...
IE preseved Microsoft's monopoly, killed a huge potential competitor, and has made microsoft a signiciant player in the Portal business.
Hardly a failure.
Microsoft's fault (Score:3, Interesting)
Dvorak, what are you thinking? (Score:2)
Internet Explorer, despite having a poor reputatio
Breaking news update (Score:2)
Seriously, of course MS never expected to make money on a product they give away for free
For the 32767th time... (Score:2)
It's not the what, it's the how (Score:2)
IE isn't the biggest blunder. Actually, it was fairly shrewd (from a MS point of view) since they were originally selling it, then released it for free to compete with (and eventually pretty much sink) Netscape. IE removed a competitor from their market - so a strict profit and loss analysis doesn't really sum it up, IMHO. It's their standard strategy. Look at MS Virtual PC versus VMware for current data if you're interested.
So no, IE is not the biggest mistake MS has ever made. Making it part of the
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
IE is a Value-adding Component (Score:2)
As people keep forgetting, IE is a reusable component and because it's so easy to integrate to allow other applications easy browing, HTML editing support, and related technologies it's helped not only Microsoft's applications (using either MSHTML or the WebBrowser control) but countless numbers of developers.
While it probably has been expensive to maintain, I'm sure it adds a lot of value to all the applications that use either mshtml.dll (rendering) or shdocvw.dll (WebBrowser control, which uses MSHTML
You need evil to have good? (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine if Microsoft's only competition was Netscape
Biggest mistake? (Score:2)
What is he on? (Score:4, Insightful)
All the work that has to go into keeping the browser afloat is time that could have been better spent on making Vista work as first advertised [...] If you were to put together a comprehensive profit-and-loss statement for IE, there would be a zero in the profits column and billions in the losses column--billions.'"
In all honestly, its a headline I would love to read. I absolutely can not stand the crap software or the tactics put out by that company. However, I will not dignifiy Dvorak with the ad revenue of clicking to his article and will instead take apart his weak qoute from the Slashdot story...
Dvorak, quite simily, is an idiot or is on something. I'll go with the former. First off, on any given development project, there is a finite number of developers that you can through at it before productivity begins to go down. As such, it makes sense for a company like Microsoft with BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars laying around to create other teams to do other things. The utter failure of Vista has nothing at all to do with IE and all its associated problems.
Ok, so now that we've dealt with how the two could not possibly be linked lets look at the reason d'etre for IE. IE has probably not DIRECTLY generated any revenue for Microsoft, however indirectly its been a cash cow. Had MS not used illegal predatory practices and bundled IE with Windows and given it away for free, MS would have steadily lost a foothold in the OS market by giving Netscape the browser edge. Even more servers would be UNIX based Apache (or Netscape) web servers and MS and its operating system would have been completely commoditized faster than its already happening. Every major web page that "works best with IE #.##" means another desktop that is not running Linux or OS X or whatever other great alternative we would have found. Its absolutely assinine to question why MS "keeps their browser afloat".
Well, there goes 15 minutes of my life, rebuffing Dvorak, when I could have been doing something more productive like watching dust settle on my finger nails. Stupid me.
He he ... (Score:5, Funny)
Why, yes, he's all of those things!!
Amazing this new fangled technology -- how does it know?
Mythical Man Month (Score:5, Insightful)
The tags sum it up nicely (Score:4, Funny)
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
New project: fix Slashdotter to filter out Dvorak (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dvorak correct? (Score:2)
Re:Uh-huh (Score:2)
Re:wow, Dvorak actually made a little sense this t (Score:2)
Considering the funky keyboard they named after him, is this any surprise?
;-)
Re:Deep Philosophical Question (Score:2)