Posting Date: July 13, 2003

The browser is not important anymore -- "I think that Microsoft is phasing out the development of the browser because they think it is no longer important for them as makers of a front end platform, and a back end platform." (Comments: Interesting thought, but too discrete. The web browser will be important for a very long time. However, it might become less important over time. It might gradually go away or die, but that time is not now. Oh, and for what it is worth, most people are clueless about Longhorn, RSS, .Net, Mozilla, CSS, and so forth. Buzzwords. Technosalad.)

Reader Comments...

Microsoft is easing off on browser development because it's vitally important to them.

They bundled a decent enough browser to see off the Netscape threat, but despite IE's huge lead and tempting proprietary features supported by FrontPage, Hotmail, Visual Studio etc., the web's still a fairly open place mostly free from Microsoft tolls. They saw off the competition but then realised they hadn't locked everyone into their systems in quite the way they'd hoped.

So it's time for another go. They'll tie the next browser into .NET web services, Palladium 'trusted computing' and DRM, and throw as much cash as it takes at getting developers and large organisations to use the new features.
Developers will be an easy sell - most love .NET, and those who work exclusively with MS products are rarely concerned about producing IE-only systems.
Expect to see online banking services lured in first (despite MS's appalling record with security), along with online media, then business-to-business, followed by a push into e-commerce and government services. If they succeed, they'll have the kind of control over much of the commercial web that they can currently only dream about.

Posted by: Matt Round on July 14, 2003 04:59 AM

Browser Wars II: The Saga Continues
by By Peter-Paul Koch on evolt.org

Posted by: Mac on July 14, 2003 05:24 AM

Microsoft is easing off on browser development because there is no competition.

Posted by: on July 14, 2003 07:15 PM

You'll have to pry my web browser from my cold, cumulative trauma disordered, dead hands!

Posted by: Robert Neville on July 14, 2003 11:52 PM

Why did you post this twice, one after the other?

Posted by: Sam on July 15, 2003 06:20 AM

I'll also have to come down on the paranoid side of this. We'll just have to wait for the pendulum to swing away from the widespread willingness to depend totally on Microsoft. I have the feeling that the whole government action against them failed miserably, and MS is very close to usrurping the web completely by totally obfuscating what was once a wonderful thing that was basically understandable to the layman. Now they are getting back to the priesthood in a big way. All I think of when I hear .NET and MSN passport, etc., is RUN!

Posted by: Ralph on July 15, 2003 12:40 PM

There are places where you can opt out of passport; just saw one today at the Adobe site, where you can register the Reader and use the new eBook functionality even _if_ you don't want to use passport.

Don't know where this'll bite me later, though. We'll have to see.

Posted by: Wolf on July 16, 2003 05:27 PM

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