Microsoft says IE updates possible

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Contrary philosophies

---Microsoft recommends using add-ons---

This is certainly an interesting turn of events. MS supporters and the company itself, have often declared that users expect certain things to be part of the OS. Now we're getting a message that if you want a properly working modern product, you should be willing to download a bunch of extra stuff from third parties.

One could argue that this philosophy is a proven failure. Alternate browsers have always existed, but in general, people were too lazy to download them because they already had IE built in. The same goes for the Java engine, why bother going to get the new one from Sun when MS provides you with one already?

Why the change in philosophy from MS? It would seem to go against their general business model. Of course, the obvious reason seems to be that they realize that there's no way for them to profit from IE, so any investment in improving it is going to have to come from outside the company.

This story seems to be the first indication that MS is starting to see other browsers as a threat, similar to what they saw in Netscape and Java way back when.

Posted by: tic swayback   Posted on: 11/18/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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