So what happens when Microsoft decides to have FrontPage generate web pages that contain this browser detection code by default? Sure, they would probably include a ``Disable Browser Detection'' checkbox, but it would be buried under n layers of menu hierarchy...
If they combine this with bundling FrontPage with their OSes (or do they do this already? I don't have any MS OS newer than Windows 95), after a while FrontPage would become the path of least resistance.
This browser-blocking stuff, right now, only affects (affected?) MSN.. but what happens if every crappy Geocities homepage and small business corporate web site includes this code by default? Eventually, ``Web Browser'' will be synonymous with ``Microsoft Internet Explorer''... Netscape, Mozilla, Konq, (name your alternate web browser), would be about as useful for general Web surfing as Mosaic is now. (There are those who would argue that this has already happened, but I do all right for now with Opera and NS 4.7)
This would be fine, if MS would port their browser to a reasonable chunk of the platforms out there, and do a good job of porting it. (Well, it wouldn't be fine exactly, but it would be livable). I hate microsoft, but I'd use their browser if I didn't have to pay for it, and if it ran on my machines. The same goes for the company I work for: we're a tiny startup, providing 3rd-party support for Open Source software. We can't afford to pay through the nose for MS licenses, and we already get everything done in Linux, so even if we wanted to migrate to Windows, it would be a bad move (not least because all the employees would quit!)
Right now, the only way I can run MS IE is on Solaris, on a Sparc machine. Unfortunately, the Solaris versions of IE are pretty awful, especially on cheaper, slower Sparc hardware.. if I want to run IE on Intel hardware, I must *buy* a copy of a Windows OS, and run it whenever I want to run IE. Since I get my actual work done in Linux and occasionally Solaris, this isn't possible, even if I or my company wanted to (yes, our budget is small enough that we can't afford to pay Microsoft for the ``privilege'' of running their OS and browser).
So who is the loser here? Not Joe Sixpack, who doesn't know (or feel the need to know) that there's more to using a computer than clicking the Start button, and who already paid his ``Windows tax'' when he bought his PC... the small business is screwed, here. Joe Sixpack is also screwed, but only in an indirect, abstract way that he probably doesn't care about. I'm no expert on the economy, but I've been led to believe that it's bad for the economy as a whole, when the environment is hostile to small businesses. Granted, the dot-bomb crash of last year has a lot to do with this, but Microsoft is not only not helping (wouldn't expect them to, that's not why they're in business), but they're actively hurting the situation. Eventually, nobody but MS stockholders and employees will be able to afford their OS (exaggeration, but you see my point?)
It's easy enough to answer me with ``If you can't afford to pay, you can't afford to play''... but we're talking about Web standards, which are supposed to be open and usable by everyone who can afford a 'net connection.
This may sound trivial... but if I had to develop on a Windows machine, with the registry `locked-down' so I couldn't make any changes, I wouldn't get more than 30 minutes of headache-free time in per day, due to the fact that white backgrounds with black text give me nasty headaches no matter how high I crank the refresh rate... Not that you could crank the refresh rate in such an environment.
This isn't because I'm a picky person (although I am), it's a physical condition brought on by too many years of learning to code on hardware I got out of a dumpster (I was using a 13" MultiSync II monitor all the way up until 1997, when I got a real job and could afford something readable)
Actually, I don't use Windows at all (I'm a UNIX person), so I don't know, but I've never seen Visual Studio or Word running with anything but a white background... is it even possible to change this? (It isn't in Star Office, which I was once required to use because our former manager wrote memos in Word format, no amount of asking nicely would get him to click `save as HTML' or `save as Text' or even `save as RTF')...
Uh, I dunno about you, but if I were to rm -rf/home/urchlay it would be pretty devastating to me.. sure, it wouldn't hurt my OS any, or affect any other users (if I had them), but there's a *lot* of stuff in my home dir... This is on Linux, but the same would apply on any OS with per-user home directories...
Well, if you're running *nix on x86, just recompile it for Sparc:)
As far as price/performance goes... try looking for a used SparcStation 10 or 20 on Ebay, I've found a few for around $100, which outperform any $100 x86 PC you could likely buy... unless you get a really amazing deal on a used PII or better machine with SCSI disks...
Yes, I realize you are talking about the new computer market, not used... But even there, will a brand new $40,000 Sparc machine (Enterprise server or whatever) outperform a $40,000 x86 machine? (Does anybody sell $40,000 x86 machines??)
But these are extreme cases anyway... in the real world, you're right.
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So what happens when Microsoft decides to have FrontPage generate web pages that contain this browser detection code by default? Sure, they would probably include a ``Disable Browser Detection'' checkbox, but it would be buried under n layers of menu hierarchy...
If they combine this with bundling FrontPage with their OSes (or do they do this already? I don't have any MS OS newer than Windows 95), after a while FrontPage would become the path of least resistance.
This browser-blocking stuff, right now, only affects (affected?) MSN.. but what happens if every crappy Geocities homepage and small business corporate web site includes this code by default? Eventually, ``Web Browser'' will be synonymous with ``Microsoft Internet Explorer''... Netscape, Mozilla, Konq, (name your alternate web browser), would be about as useful for general Web surfing as Mosaic is now. (There are those who would argue that this has already happened, but I do all right for now with Opera and NS 4.7)
This would be fine, if MS would port their browser to a reasonable chunk of the platforms out there, and do a good job of porting it. (Well, it wouldn't be fine exactly, but it would be livable). I hate microsoft, but I'd use their browser if I didn't have to pay for it, and if it ran on my machines. The same goes for the company I work for: we're a tiny startup, providing 3rd-party support for Open Source software. We can't afford to pay through the nose for MS licenses, and we already get everything done in Linux, so even if we wanted to migrate to Windows, it would be a bad move (not least because all the employees would quit!)
Right now, the only way I can run MS IE is on Solaris, on a Sparc machine. Unfortunately, the Solaris versions of IE are pretty awful, especially on cheaper, slower Sparc hardware.. if I want to run IE on Intel hardware, I must *buy* a copy of a Windows OS, and run it whenever I want to run IE. Since I get my actual work done in Linux and occasionally Solaris, this isn't possible, even if I or my company wanted to (yes, our budget is small enough that we can't afford to pay Microsoft for the ``privilege'' of running their OS and browser).
So who is the loser here? Not Joe Sixpack, who doesn't know (or feel the need to know) that there's more to using a computer than clicking the Start button, and who already paid his ``Windows tax'' when he bought his PC... the small business is screwed, here. Joe Sixpack is also screwed, but only in an indirect, abstract way that he probably doesn't care about. I'm no expert on the economy, but I've been led to believe that it's bad for the economy as a whole, when the environment is hostile to small businesses. Granted, the dot-bomb crash of last year has a lot to do with this, but Microsoft is not only not helping (wouldn't expect them to, that's not why they're in business), but they're actively hurting the situation. Eventually, nobody but MS stockholders and employees will be able to afford their OS (exaggeration, but you see my point?)
It's easy enough to answer me with ``If you can't afford to pay, you can't afford to play''... but we're talking about Web standards, which are supposed to be open and usable by everyone who can afford a 'net connection.
This may sound trivial... but if I had to develop on a Windows machine, with the registry `locked-down' so I couldn't make any changes, I wouldn't get more than 30 minutes of headache-free time in per day, due to the fact that white backgrounds with black text give me nasty headaches no matter how high I crank the refresh rate... Not that you could crank the refresh rate in such an environment.
This isn't because I'm a picky person (although I am), it's a physical condition brought on by too many years of learning to code on hardware I got out of a dumpster (I was using a 13" MultiSync II monitor all the way up until 1997, when I got a real job and could afford something readable)
Actually, I don't use Windows at all (I'm a UNIX person), so I don't know, but I've never seen Visual Studio or Word running with anything but a white background... is it even possible to change this? (It isn't in Star Office, which I was once required to use because our former manager wrote memos in Word format, no amount of asking nicely would get him to click `save as HTML' or `save as Text' or even `save as RTF')...
Uh, I dunno about you, but if I were to rm -rf /home/urchlay it would be pretty devastating to me.. sure, it wouldn't hurt my OS any, or affect any other users (if I had them), but there's a *lot* of stuff in my home dir... This is on Linux, but the same would apply on any OS with per-user home directories...
Well, if you're running *nix on x86, just recompile it for Sparc :)
As far as price/performance goes... try looking for a used SparcStation 10 or 20 on Ebay, I've found a few for around $100, which outperform any $100 x86 PC you could likely buy... unless you get a really amazing deal on a used PII or better machine with SCSI disks...
Yes, I realize you are talking about the new computer market, not used... But even there, will a brand new $40,000 Sparc machine (Enterprise server or whatever) outperform a $40,000 x86 machine? (Does anybody sell $40,000 x86 machines??)
But these are extreme cases anyway... in the real world, you're right.