Submitted by The first-mover advantage is well chronicled, but it didn’t help Netscape when Microsoft launched Internet Explorer. What drives technology adoption, and do browser upstarts such as Firefox stand a chance? A Q&A with professor Pai-Ling Yin of Harvard Business School. On a related note, a development version of Firefox now passes the Acid2 test.
Just look at the Virtual Machine wars that have errupted lately. Virtual PC vs VMWare. Its happening again.
I wouldn’t put the VM wars in the same category. VMs are primarily geek toys; whereas this article is trying to evaluate consumer trends.
The URL is hidden in the firefox screenshot, that could easily be a PNG. But regardless, one can download and test if need be. The minefield version of Firefox is scheduled for Firefox 3, so it’s still a while before Firefox will pass Acid 2 for everybody. Though this is not the end of the world exactly.
IE *LOST* the browser wars. How much money has MSFT made off of it? Less than nothing. If I held MSFT stock, I’d be pissed they STILL haven’t completely EOL’ed it. Pour salt in its mouth and chop its head off, for Crom’s sake!
Well, I think it depends on your vantage point. If you’re a MS shareholder, you might well conclude that the company did damage to itself by integrating IE and having to fight the DOJ, thus incurring a long period of malaise in the stock; however, it’s also probable that the stock slump would have happened anyway and regardless of what MS did, due to intense stock overspeculation during the dotcom era. On the other hand, if you’re the MS CFO, you might well conclude that integrating IE was VERY good for sales of the operating systems and the Office suite, which also uses (or at least used) IE, because it thwarted the emergence of serious competing platforms.
IE *LOST* the browser wars. How much money has MSFT made off of it? Less than nothing. If I held MSFT stock, I’d be pissed they STILL haven’t completely EOL’ed it. Pour salt in its mouth and chop its head off, for Crom’s sake!
Keep it in context, MS isn’t a company that runs every project as a profit-center, in a lot of cases loss-leader projects are intended to prevent competitive platforms from threatening the golden goose.
What a lot of people overlook about the “browser wars” is that MS poured their resources into IE because Netscape was promoting a new application paradigm where everything would be server based and delivered through the browser, courtesy of their proprietary server technology. They were probably ahead of their time with that proclamation but at the end of the day we’ll never know because MS succeeded in thwarting Netscape’s attempts to de-marginalize the value of a the typical desktop OS. It was never about owning the internet, it was about ensuring the internet’s reliance on Windows as a client and eventually, a server.
So, now the world revolves around Windows and MS is making money hand over fist as people are forced to pay for licenses by hook or by crook.
I’d say mission accomplished, and we’re not the better for it.
IE *LOST* the browser wars. How much money has MSFT made off of it? Less than nothing. If I held MSFT stock, I’d be pissed they STILL haven’t completely EOL’ed it. Pour salt in its mouth and chop its head off, for Crom’s sake!
I agree with the others on this comment. MS did not make IE to BE the profit maker. By introducing IE (and ActiveX), MS end up with good penetration in other areas such as IIS servers, asp, etc.
The number of servers that runs ActiveX controls (with IIS) and still don’t work with Firefox today is a testament to the effects of IE penetration into the broad PC consumer market.
“The number of servers that runs ActiveX controls (with IIS) and still don’t work with Firefox today is”….. an extremely, extremely miniscule number. I find more sites, actaully, that work BETTER with Firefox than IE.
I find more sites, actaully, that work BETTER with Firefox than IE.
My statement did not really have any to do with more or less sites with better with Firefox or not. With Mozilla and Firefox penetrating the market better majority of the sites works with both.
My point was that there are still a number of sites (some high profile ones like banks) that are still IE only. That’s the sticking point. You can say that you “vote with your hands and feet” but it won’t work if you just happens to be the one just making the purchase orders for a company (and you don’t have a choice of suppliers). It is in those situations that the previous IE penetration is apparent. Who says that MS won’t come up with some newer protocol that would lock people in with IE 7 (anti-competitive lawsuits aside)?
IE *LOST* the browser wars. How much money has MSFT made off of it? Less than nothing. If I held MSFT stock, I’d be pissed they STILL haven’t completely EOL’ed it. Pour salt in its mouth and chop its head off, for Crom’s sake!
You’re looking at IE as a stand alone entity when the reality, IE was going to be the gateway to Microsofts online ’empire’ and you could only access that ‘online empire’ if you had IE, and obviously, with Windows running underneath it.
I think Microsoft is slowly realising that the money is made in providing services and the back end; the amount of work required for the client end vs. the return just doesn’t stack up when you consider the servers, their set requirements, the fact that the maintainers are technically knowledgable, so tonnes don’t need to be pushed into ‘ease of use’ research.
Sure, Microsoft will continue to supply Windows for the client, but you’ll find that their main focus will be at the back end of the equation, pushing services out to customers.
You’re looking at IE as a stand alone entity when the reality, IE was going to be the gateway to Microsofts online ’empire’ and you could only access that ‘online empire’ if you had IE, and obviously, with Windows running underneath it.
Yeah, because IE became the dominant browser, Microsoft was able to control browser compatibility. Websites soon became “optimized for IE”. Once that happened, it became very difficult for web developers to get away from IE, and it was off-putting for competing browsers, which now had to adopt IE compatibility in order to display most sites properly; even if the behavior wasn’t purely W3C compliant. Opera has prided itself on standards compliance rather than IE compatibility, but look at its market share: It’s trailing in small single digits.
Like I always suspected, academic standards are pretty low at Harvard. The whole paper is a crock, based on false, unsupported premises.
ke I always suspected, academic standards are pretty low at Harvard. The whole paper is a crock, based on false, unsupported premises.
Would you care to give any examples?
This would at least bear out some of the article’s premises…
Just tell them you own a Mac. They give you alternative authorisation mechanisms.
Try IE7-beta and its my main browser, now ie7 feel like the others browsers, so now i dont have problem viewing videos in the web ect…