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RealNames CEO Talks Back

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ring-of-power dept.

jasoncart writes: "Keith Teare, former CEO of RealNames, has updated his homepage with his opinions regarding his the companies downfall. Obviously he's annoyed as he has lost his job, but he makes some good points about Microsoft's monopoly - 'Microsoft seems to be playing the role of the referee who decides whether any innovations succeed'"

5 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Lay down with dogs by mangu · · Score: 3, Informative

    And wake up with fleas. What he tried to do was out-micorsoft Microsoft at their own game, which is changing internet standards in proprietary ways.

  2. Re:Sour Grapes... by Dominic_Mazzoni · · Score: 3, Informative

    Geeks who speak English have little reason to need RealNames.

    However, the same can't be said for average computer users whose native language can't be rendered in ASCII (i.e. most of Asia). RealNames made it possible for them to go to websites by typing in words in their native language, instead of words in a character set they may not be familiar with.

  3. Re:If you choose to dance with an elephant... by raju1kabir · · Score: 3, Informative
    I take exception to Teare's comment:
    The only naming technology in the world capable of allowing non-ASCII characters to be used as web addresses is being killed at birth

    Also you might want to take exception to the lack of factual basis. Plenty of TLDs already support non-ASCII characters in DNS, and have for some time. Check out, for example, NUNIC's Worldnames project.

    --
    "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
  4. Google has several search language options by marhar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Go to http://www.google.com/preferences, and you can choose from among dozens of languages to search in, including 16-bit languages.

  5. RealCEO with Unreal Expectations by KFury · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you don't want Microsoft to referee the success or failure of your innovation, then don't create innovations which depend on marketing and implementation deals with Microsoft for their success.

    RealNames was a marketing ploy, taking advantage of Microsoft's dominance above actual internet standards, and exchanging that monopoly for material gain. The fact that it failed is a testament to the capability of standards over proprietary schemes, and is hardly an example of the evils of Microsoft's monopoly.

    The evils of Microsoft's monopoly is the reason RealNames existed in the first place, not the reason it was torn down.

    --

    Kevin Fox