Microsoft calls on consumers to test IE 7

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Good ol' MS, innovating away...

This is a perfect example of what happens when MS is allowed to
kill competition. Having driven Netscape out of business with a
variety of anti-competitive tactics that led to convicts under
anti-trust law, MS promptly left IE to stagnate for over 6 years.

Even Safari, picked-up by Apple just over 3 years ago, is now
way ahead of IE in terms of functionality and standards
compliance. Considering it has done that against a product that
has been around for over 12 years, you've gotta wonder just how
much longer MS could have held out.

It is also excellent proof of Microsoft's monopoly power - what
other browser manufactuer could have left a product to stagnate
for 6 years without any significant upgrades to functionality, yet
still command over 80% (arguably) of the 'market'? Even IE 7 will
be behind most other browsers for functionality and standards
compliance, it might have been competitive in say 2003, but in
2006 it's features are way behind the times.

The continued widespread use of IE can be attributed almost
solely to the fact that it comes bundled with Windows and is the
default browser.

Given a choice of browsers, who would choose IE over any of its
competitors? Gecko browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape) are
clearly superior, as is Opera. There are a slew of other niche
players who are pretty good too, but they find it hard to get any
recognition at all.

Posted by: Fred Fredrickson   Posted on: 04/24/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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