Flutterby™! : IE dead? 2003-05-27 20:39:37.230381+00

IE dead?

2003-05-27 20:39:37.230381+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

Scoble has been teasing us by linking to a lot of people asking "Is IE dead?". Slightly Bent, DonXML, then Frans Bouma saying "Don't reinvent the browser". Today Scoble continues the tease with:

All of you who are asking "is IE dead?" are asking the wrong question.

The right question is: "is the Web dead in Longhorn?"

Ages ago, Cam invited me down to a Netscape developer's shindig, shortly after it became Mozilla and had AOL pouring some bucks into it. I didn't understand then what people were talking about, the browser and the development environment merging, but now it's crystal: Microsoft clearly believes that HTML over HTTP has gone about as far as application development can. And using HTML as a forms layout language allows for too much openness, it's too easy for Mozilla and Opera to keep up with embedding controls. What matters is that the applications start to become more and more native to the platform. That's how you buy the lock-in, make sure that the apps aren't portable any more. When you use a signed app from an airline to order tickets from the airline, then these little differences from browser bugs pale in the face of asking the pointy haired ones at the airline to build multiple front-ends. And the pointy hairs get what they've always been pushing for: More control over the user.

Yes. IE is dead. Long live .NET.

And using HTML as a forms layout language allows for too much openness, it's too easy for Mozilla and Opera to keep up with embedding controls. What matters is that the applications start to become more and more native to the platform. That's how you buy the lock-in, make sure that the apps aren't portable any more. When you use a signed app from an airline to order tickets from the airline, then these little differences from browser bugs pale in the face of asking the pointy haired ones at the airline to build multiple front-ends. And the pointy hairs get what they've always been pushing for: More control over the user.

You know, reading that again, about 12 hours after the last time I read it, I still get a visceral anger response, and pretty much the only comment I can muster up is "Fuck that noise".