Here’s an email exchange …

Here’s an email exchange [posted with the author’s permission] with one of the people who felt they needed to flame me last week regarding my opinions about Microsoft. What’s funny is this person sent the email through a Hotmail account, assuming that they would be anonymous. It took me all of five minutes to trace the originating IP number and figure out who was behind the email.

Taylor sent me an email saying that most of the email I’ve received recently has probably been from people trying to defend their browser and/or OS choice. For what it’s worth, I don’t care what browser or OS you’re using. What I do care about is that when you are using them (or developing for them) that you take into consideration people who are using a different browser or OS. This goes two ways, too. Feigning ignorance about HTML-based email is not an excuse. Developing web sites and software that strengthen an existing monopoly is also not very cool. Yes, IE 5.x on Windows is a pretty slick application, but only after you understand Microsoft’s hidden agenda(s) do you realize what it’s all really about. “Innovation,” my ass. It’s about hanging onto a monopoly, folks, and nothing more.

Statmarket reports that Microsoft currently has a 82% share of the browser market with IE 4.x and 5.x. Websnapshot reports that Microsoft currently has a 75% share of the browser market. How high do you think those numbers would be if Microsoft hadn’t shipped a tightly-integrated web browser with their OS? Probably not very high at all. This is what they mean when they say Microsoft is leveraging one monopoly (in the OS market) to gain a competitive advantage in another (the browser market).

Responses to the email-to-web query:

Thanks go out to Aaron, Colin, Chris, Bill and Pete for sending in some very valuable links.

Like the webapps site, Browserware seeks to compile news and links about browser-based web applications.

O’Reilly Network: Interview with Keith Bostic

Zeal.com is a lot like Epinions.

Steven Champeon on Microsoft’s responsiblity.

mattl.com gets a cease and desist from Mattel. While that’s just plain silly, I think Matt’s changeable caption thing on the home page is pretty cool.

Posted by Cameron Barrett at May 8, 2000 04:08 PM

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