Comments on: Microsoft outFirefoxed?

So far the company's playing it low-key, but CNET News.com's Charles Cooper says a barrage of verbal pyrotechnics is just around the bend.

Outfoxed by Web Standards

You ommit to mention the vital role played by W3C web standards in both the previous and current 'browser wars'.

It was not only attack-dog PR that Microsoft deployed last time.

They also levered web standards by ensuring that IE complied with the latest versions of HTML, CSS and JavaScript/ECMAScript at a time when Netscape was committed to proprietary HTML extensions, a proprietary stylesheet technology (JSS) and restricted scripting access to browser functionality (the 'DOM').

This basically meant that web designers could code for IE while ensuring graceful degredation for other browsers. The reverse could not be done by those who coded for Netscape.

As soon as Netscape was out of the way, Microsoft dropped any serious pretence of completing their implementation of CSS and other W3C standards.

Since then, just about all of their web and browser related initiatives (especially XAML) have been designed to replace the web interface with Windows-only .Net technologies and protocols.

They deserve to suffer Netscape's fate and be out-flanked by Firefox's excellent support for 21st century standards. Sadly, this is unlikely to happen while media commentators continue to ignore the critical role that standards play.

[sunergeos]

Perception is a factor...

but so does market share. Even though Microsoft was convicted of being a predatory monopolist they still ended up with the market share. So people will code to IE as an ad-hoc standard until it gets displaced. We are seeing it happen, but it may take some time.

Superior applications like Dreamweaver have done a lot to keep the IE extensions in place. They recognize the differences in IE, but offer methods for segregating the code in the web pages. Dreamweaver goes a long way in pointing out the browser differences and gives the user a chance to handle those situations. That has helped a lot.

I've been able to code my web pages using CCS without having to stoop to catering to IE. I code by hand, but after while you develop a toolset of code snippets that is compatible across the board.

Standards are definitely making a comeback.

[CoachWT]

Avalon and the W3C

MS is going to meet with the W3C to show Avalon.
They would be wise to adopt everything from MS as a standard. No one is going to open a Firefox or IE browser if the application on the desktop doesn't require it. The integration of the browser into the OS (Avalon) will make Firefox and IE useless.

[saleen351]

Erros in your article

"Firefox poses the latest challenge. The Mozilla folks say they have registered more than 25 million downloads since the Feb. 15 release of Firefox 1.0."


FF1.0 was not release on Feb 15, if so thats 25 million downloads in 3 days, lol... FF was released 100 days prior to Feb 15. So it's 25 million in 100 days..

[zizzybaloobah]

Win back customers?

How do you win back customers when every your product is already included (integrated, whatever) with every copy of Windows? How do you tell users that the technology that was going to save the world (ActiveX) turned out to be IE's Achille's heel? I can't wait to see what happens. My big questions:

Will the updated IE automatically make itself the default browser? (probably)

Will IE be changed so that Firefox can no longer import IE favorites and other settings? (no doubt -- why make it easy for people to switch to Firefox?)

Will it support web standards? (who nows, I'll hope for the best and expect the worst)

How many of Firefox's nifty features (or extensions) will IE co-opt and market as "new and improved" features in IE? (probably many, as MS has done this before with other products -- Excel being a great example)

[David Arbogast]

EASY!!

<<How do you win back customers when every your product is already included (integrated, whatever) with every copy of Windows? >>

Easy. Simple. History has demonstrated this over and over.

Examples:

Adobe Photoshop: Succeeds because it is clearly superior to Microsoft's integrated Paint program.

Netscape Navigator: Tremendous success and a monopoly on browsers when competing against the inferior IE 1.x and 2.x that was integrated at the time. (IE never surpassed NS in marketshare until it had a superior product with version 3.02, I think)

WinDVD: Has a higher user-base for DVD watching than the integrated Windows MediaPlayer, because in may respects, it is superior for this particular function.

IPSec VPN Clients: More common than Microsoft's initial L2TP integrated solution because it is clearly superior.

Oracle DB: Tremendously successful because in some situations people consider it superior to SQL Server.

How do you compete successfully with ANY product on the market? Create a BETTER product, of course! This requires obvious superiority over existing products... not a mishmash of mostly irrelevant features like tabbed browsing and false claims of performance. And certainly not through bashing your competitors products. CLAIMS of superiority are pointless if they are not easily visible to ALL customers.

[daygo140]

That's Healthy Competition

"How many of Firefox's nifty features (or extensions) will IE co-opt and market as "new and improved" features in IE? (probably many, as MS has done this before with other products -- Excel being a great example)"

Look at the auto industry. Power windows, power locks, power steering, rear defrost, heated seats, and the list goes on. You think us as a consumer would truely benifit if the above features stay with and only with the auto manufactorers that originally invented/implemented them?

OS/2

The press was at least 50% of the reason OS/2 did not make it. It was a vastly superior OS. IBM did everything possible promoting OS/2 at the various conferences. I saw many execellent presentations of IBM showing off how well OS/2 really was. But the press didn't follow through. They killed it by following on the empty promises of a true computer geek, Bill Gates. FOOLS. We all lost because of irresponsible, incomplete and sometimes no reporting at all regarding OS/2. Then there was the whole issue of F.U.D. and the pre-loading agreements MS had with all of the major PC manufacturers at that time. The US DOJ also had a hand in the pot and did absolutely nothing to effect any change in the marketplace.
They must have been stock holders in M$.

[David Arbogast]

Give us a break

OS/2 was clearly superior? Sorry. I own a copy of OS/2 Warp that I purchased when it was first released. IBM marketed it during the olympics and everywhere else. You couldn't open a magazine or turn on TV without hearing about "Warp." I went to demos and release events, and every single store carried the OS. If OS/2 Warp was clearly superior, it would have caught on. Furthermore, if OS/2 was superior, it would have been retained as IBM's primary commercial OS instead of AIX, which is still maintained today, long after OS/2 was killed an burried.

Consumers did not prefer OS/2. And neither did IBM employees or developers. They all preferred either Windows, or some other variant of Unix. How can you support the idea that Warp was "clearly" superior when IBM iteslf rejected it?

[Trane Francks]

The press sure didn't HELP

I saw several OS/2 demos that were SUPERB, to the point that I moved from DR DOS/DESQview onto OS/2. I stayed there until 1995 when I had to learn UNIX for work and fell in love with it. Linux followed shortly after.

OS/2 was excellent, but it seldom got a break in the press of the day. The combination of the press saying how few applications there were for the OS were generally true, but mostly failed to take note that OS/2's DOS really *was* a better DOS and Windows 3.x apps generally ran VERY well on it.

It's fair to comment that Microsoft out-marketed Big Blue. It's not the whole story, though.

[PolarUpgrade]

Could it be the Integrated IE ghost at work here?

Perhaps Microisoft has a bigger problem: Having blustered its way through the U.S. antitrust proceedings claiming IE is entirely and irreversibly "integrated" and tied to Windows, MS dare not do anything to hint that this assertion might not be so.

The judge overseeing the U.S. settlement appears recently to have become a bit more questioning of MS, and this implies MS is feeling constrained, especially in light of its dreadful EU predicament, wherein the bright legal minds of Europe have essentially told MS they must halt their entire business model, period.

Perhaps MS, having made its own bed, is now having to lie in it, so to speak, or else.

How ironic, creating a clever excuse for bundling--that the OS made them do it; and now MS dare not unbundle IE (which explains why IE 7 is just for XP).

But the mighty MS might just fall on its own sword because of this. Let us not get our hopes up, however.

Could It Be They Don't Care?

Maybe browser building is becoming a yawner like having the best spreadsheet when good enough is good enough. They'll certainly compete and update the browser, but giving away software isn't a big market driver.

There are other markets that pay for software. Maybe web page developers just aren't that important to that market model. If I wanted to trim out fat, I'd adopt a model that enabled development of open source components on a proprietary operating system. Oh wait! That is what FireFox does. I think they are always glad to see someone develop yet another Windows application. :-)

The browser war doesn't excite them. It has become a sport like the America's Cup: nice to have the bragging rights but in the bigger picture, it's just a cup.

[charlie cooper]

Could it be they don't care?

"The browser war doesn't excite them. It has become a sport like the America's Cup: nice to have the bragging rights but in the bigger picture, it's just a cup."

Great summation. Wish I thought of it first.

[charlie cooper]

Typo du jour

Good catch, Nick. Typo city. Long since fixed but thanks for keeping us honest .:)

[Llib Setag]

I swear your Honor, IE & WinOS cannot be seperated...Citizen Gates

Remember Citizen Gates tesifying in Federal Court during the
DOJ Anti-Trust Lawsuit & the pending fines &/or breaking
Microsoft into smaller companies?

Didn't he swear under oath that because of the tight integration
of IE with WinOS which "benefits" the consumers, also make it
impossible to "divorce" them from one another?

Also, after a series of Prosecution expert witnesses testimonies,
Citizen Gates then swore under oath that IF in fact MS was
FORCED to "divorce" IE from WinOS, that is would cause great
havoc & expense to MS to the point of near bankruptcy?
It would also "stiffle innovation" & the consumers would suffer...

NOW all of a sudden when MS has some competiton from Open
Source/Mozilla/Firefox/Safari/Mozilla based Netscape/AOL/
Opera/etc. browsers & people are tired of all the security risks &
loss of business & waiting for six years for Redmond Jurassic
DOSasaurs to get off their fat behinds & DO some REAL
innovation,
NOW MS IE can be "improved & security assured" yet SEPARATE
from the OS as a stand alone browser software....HMMMM.....
Me thinks me smells a (Fire)Fox in the hen house.

I had the same initial thought when I read that..

but to be totally fair what he argued (and to some degree what has kinda / sorta been proven by the fact that IE security holes can hit you in other applications even if you never use IE anymore) is that IE was too deeply embeded into Windows to be removed.

Basically he was saying he couldn't sell a version of windows without any IE components in it. Undoubtedly an exageration, since there is always more than one way to skin a cat... but not really contradictory to releasing a new version. (and lest be realistic in years past they've released new versions of IE outside of Windows releases, so that was never really the claim).

[PolarUpgrade]

Watch, IE7 for XP will be part of a "service pack"

I predict that to get around the legal issue MS will issue XP IE7 as a "service pacK" to imply that the OS is being integrally updated.

This is why there can be no IE7 for Windows 98, and 2000.

[vocaro]

But they are not divorcing anything

You know, I was thinking the very same thing, but if you think
about it a little more, carrying out this action will NOT make
Gates a liar. That's because they are not actually "divorcing"
anything. They are simply upgrading the existing browser, which
is already integrated into Windows XP. So it seems Bill won't be
facing any perjury charges after all...

[daygo140]

IE is Much Faster

If they can step up their security issues with active X and simply add tabbed browsing, IE would be the one.

IE is MUCH faster. The URL below shows that. I myself can see a significant speed difference. http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html

As far as security the SP2 update prevents several security threats that the common user doesn't know how to avoid in the first place. Face it, any software that's on the top is victim to countless attempts to compromise. If OS X and Mozilla Firefox where at the top, they'd be the PRIMARY victims.

Microsoft is quick to release patches to address security issues. As we all know Linux and many other software in the computing world provides updates to secure their software. I don't know of any software that was released that never had any patches or security issues for that matter, since MS is on top they get the brink of it. Face it Microsoft changed the digital age. Everyone wants to knock them off the top and/or a piece of the pie, from malicious users? compromising the security (probably competition) to the competition.

[daygo140]

Also Something to Think About

If you were the developer of the malicious programs, obviously one of your intentions is to reach as many end users you possibly can.

We all know MS software is installed and more widely used than any other software, whatever the case may be. By writing this malicious software and targeting OS X, Linux, Firefox, etc. you are only targeting probably 15 percent of the users. The other 85 percent is MS users. Why wouldn't you make them your primary target?

[BazNZ]

Tabbed Browsing

I think it's kind of odd that Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn't have tabbed browsing.
Microsoft Visual Studio has had ?tabbed browsing? since version 2002 (I wish you could drag the tabs in Firefox to change their order like in Visual Studio) and I guess it's using Internet Explorer libraries to render the content.

Perhaps you should read more...

The website you mentioned did not clearly
state that unlike your claim "IE is faster" they
stated:

"So overall, Opera seems to be the fastest browser for windows. Firefox is not faster than Internet Explorer, except for scripting, but for standards support, security and features, it is a better choice. However, it is still not as fast as Opera, and Opera also offers a high level of standards support, security and features."

And lets keep in mind that they are compairing new
firefox technology and capabilites with old IE code. The fact is that IE even with the latest
patches still lack much of the capability and standards that come defalut in Firefox. A better
comparison will be when they benchmark IE7 with
a (then) current version of Firefox.

[Prndll]

You people seem to miss the point....

It is the creators of websites that are taking control, not MS. MS is just allowing them the lattitude to do it.

W3C standards? what a joke!
New HTML? yet another joke!

Firefox is not the cure all. It's just that so many poeple are getting so tired of IE problems. The absolute biggest problem here is the ability for someone to code a website in such a way that the code is processed by the browser and the browser is no longer in control. With all these new html (and other) features, the more the browser can process, them more control the website has over the browser. The only reason we even need anti-popup software is because the browser can correctly process the html code that creates the popup in the first place. If the browser didn't process it, it would be a concern and websites would stop being coded to do it. One of the biggest problems with IE is that it processes code to allow a site access to the windows files and registry. Remove this capability, and you plug most of the holes. But, what is actually happening is that browsers are getting programmed to process even more of this and thereby making the problem worse. A stand-alone browser would be better, but I think that too many people are looking at Firefox blindly hoping for the "perfect" out and a cure-all. Coming out with new html, xlm, or whatever codes and tags is not the answer. There are already too many. A large portion of these codes and tags really need to be eliminated. That isn't the direction this is going.

True: but

"One of the biggest problems with IE is that it processes code to allow a site access to the windows files and registry. Remove this capability, and you plug most of the holes."

What you say is true. But since Windows update works through this, I see very little possibility for the real hole to ever be fixed.

[technewsjunkie]

What is MS rational for offering separate Browser???

Charles, have you heard their rational?

Has anybody heard Gates rational for this complete reversal after
TESTIFYING in court that they couldn't separate the browser from
the OS without irreparable harm??

Where is the DOJ on this?

[zeroplane]

Playing golf and spending money on buffy

Why the DOJ is playing more golf, buying a new car, going on more vacations, and spending more money on their trophy wife number 2. They suddenly have more discressionary spending money now. Micro$oft? Micro-who?

Outfoxed

I switched last fall also and had my customers do the same. If Microsoft only allows customers running XP SP2 to get the new IE 7 then they will really be missing out. I know there are a large number of people running Win2K and dont see any reason to switch to XP and IE 7 wont convince them. (this includes me)