Linked by Roberto J. Dohnert on Wed 21st Jan 2004 18:55 UTC
As many of you may remember I did a review of Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 (SFU) a few months ago. I remember being frustrated with that release because it seemed to me that all Microsoft did was throw something together just to be able to say "Hey look, we have this". I thought, since Microsoft released version 3.5, I would revisit and see what changes were done with it. I downloaded the beta version a while back and from the beta I was very impressed with the improvements that Microsoft made. Being a beta version it was buggy and some things just didnt quite work. I finally got the final version of the OpenBSD-based SFU 3.5 and this release makes dynamic leaps and bounds over previous releases of this software package. I am glad to see a lot more work was put into this release.
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Actually, MSFT dropped that product because pretty much nobody was interested in using it. All the Unices were running Netscape or Mozilla and such and no-one would touch IE, just as you would expect, really. This is probably the same case for OS X as well. Even though it used to be the default browser installed, Mac users and Apple are probably glad to be rid of it and to have Safari now.
Why would one expect UNIX people not to touch IE for UNIX? I used it and it was crap, when I mean crap, it made Netscape 4.xx series look half good. From the slow performance to the crap stability, it was a nightmare in every definition of what nightmare is.
Don't get my started about Media Player, if there was ever a reason to give Microsoft employees a public flogging, this would it.
About the only positive spin, if possible, was that Mainsoft was able to get their product into the limelight long enough for people to realise that because they've developed their application to Windows doesn't mean that they're completely screwed to the point of non-portability.
I just don't think it is quite fair to compare SFU with a product like IE for Unix (which was ported directly from the Windows version using the MKS cross-platform tookit - it was not even a real native Unix app!) that had virtually no demand whatsoever before it died anyway.
Oh, there was interest, however, when you start getting, "the bloody thing can't even run Java!" and "I opened up Outlook Express and the whole thing keeled over", one kind of gives up on giving IE/OE a try.