begin oe_protect.scr
B Gruff <bbgruff@xxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> On Tuesday 24 October 2006 11:36 Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> Firefox Developers Not Scared of IE7
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | With the release of Internet Explorer 7 imminent,
>> | Firefox developers have a surprising response: They
>> | consider Microsoft to be doing them a favor.
>> `----
>
> "A new version of Firefox, 2.0, will be released on Tuesday, on the heels of
> the big IE7 launch. And while it doesn't bring changes anywhere near as
> drastic as those seen in the first new version of IE in five years, it will
> bring some interface, security, and back-end advances. The upgrade offers
> some new features, but is primarily a tightening and polishing of the
> existing program"
>
> imo they are right - MS have done them a "favour" (I doubt it was
> intentional!) in that they have not leap-frogged Firefox.
> It's been 5 years since I.E. was previously updated, and even now MS have
> (at best) barely caught up with the "basic" FF. When you consider nearly
> 2,000 extensions, they are nowhere near. Meanwhile, FF will continue to
> develop, a little at a time, in an orderly manner, and be available to
> *all* Operating Systems, not just Windows XP.
>
> In fact, it's a similar story with Vista, is it not? Five years to make a
> small leap, during which Linux distributions have steadily improved almost
> beyond recognition, and will continue to improve and develop until Vista is
> released, while Vista is released, and after Vista is released, all free,
> all open, all "take it if you wish"..... it's not much of a contest any
> more....
>
The pace of development of free software continues to rise, and as the
numbers of people working on the free stuff increase, so those left
working on the proprietary stuff will find it harder and harder to keep
up. MS have enormously deep pockets, but I'm sure that they realise
that the days of leveraging a desktop monopoly are over, so I very much
doubt that they'll be inclined to pour their cash-reserves into propping
up the Windows and Office businesses for too much longer, rather,
they'll need to get into the growing markets instead.
Unfortunately, they also need to change their modus operandi from
lock-in to support, and from licensing to purchase, which will be harder
from a corporate perspective, I think. There are alternative
possibilities, but they might be things like entering the game-writing
business, although it's not a very large market compared to what they've
been used to, and doing so could well scare any other developers from
their own platform.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel.
(If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?)
-- Found on a door in the MSU music building
|
|
