NETSCAPE AND MICROSOFT DUEL OVER INTRANET MARKET
Netscape will give away software tools that make it easier for developers
to write programs for internal company "intranets" using Internet formats.
The tools will be compatible with Netscape ONE -- Netscape's name for a set
of proposed industry standards that includes Corba, which competes with
ActiveX, the proposed standard developed by Microsoft. By giving away
Corba and other software-development tools that run on many computer
operating systems, Netscape is trying to draw the attention of software
developers away from ActiveX, which will initially run only on Microsoft
Windows operating systems when it is released some months from now. (Wall
Street Journal 29 Jul 96 B4)
MICROSOFT RELEASES WINDOWS NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 holds Microsoft's hopes of beating strong competitors like
IBM, Oracle, Sun, HP, Netscape and others in the race to provide software
for corporate and other large networks. Windows NT is the basis of
Microsoft's Back Office software suite that generated more than $1 billion
last year, which represented 11% of Microsoft's total revenue. (USA Today
31 Jul 96 2A)
MICROSOFT WANTS TO BE LARGEST ADVERTISER ON THE NET
Microsoft chief operating officer Bob Herbold says that Microsoft is using
the Internet to do "real-time marketing," with the goal of becoming the
largest advertiser on the Internet. Herbold cited a recent campaign in
which Microsoft responded to a Netscape ad on the Web offering $66 upgrades
to its Navigator program by quickly blanketing the Web with competing ads
offering Microsoft's Explorer software free. (New York Times 1 Aug 96 C2)
WILL GATES BE THE "WINTEL GORBACHEV"?
Red Herring magazine < http://www.herring.com/mag/issue34/letter.html >
urges Microsoft's Bill Gates to use a cross platform architecture for the
company's ActiveX software, arguing that "ActiveX is the right language for
the Intranet and for useful pages on the World Wide Web" but that "Java is
the right language for the emerging market of digital devices that will be
attached -- in ways that are still mysterious -- to the Internet... In
other words, Java is perfect for what it was originally designed for: the
embedded systems inside smart telephones, faxes, printers, set-top boxes,
and non-standard devices." The magazine admits that Gates could become
"the Wintel Gorbachev" by following its advice, but insists that Microsoft
would be foolish to hold onto proprietary standards too long. (Red Herring
Aug 96)
GASOLINE WANTS TO BE FREE
Author James Gleick says that the opponents of online copyright tend to be
people who have never tried to make a living from their writing. "The
writing of professors is subsidized. The new millions of impromptu Web
publishers have a different mentality, too; their work is rarely for pay,
and they are delighted if it is noticed and passed along." Dismissing the
slogan "Information wants to be free" as equivalent to the sentences "I
want information to be free ... and I want gasoline to be free," Gleick
says the best way to promote knowledge is to let people profit from the
intellectual products they create. (New York Times Magazine 4 Aug 96 p16)
MICROSOFT HOPES ITS TALISMAN WILL WORK MAGIC
Some industry observers are saying that Microsoft's two-year microchip
research project is bearing fruit, in the form of Talisman -- a chip that
delivers fast, realistic graphics using a $300 PC circuit board. The new
chip will be marketed as a way of enabling PC owners to produce graphics
similar in quality to those produced by $50,000 Silicon Graphics
workstations, resulting in a proliferation of animated, online, storefront
and other applications. One research industry president calls Talisman
"fabulous," and predicts it will inspire "killer" applications by 1998.
(Wall Street Journal 6 Aug 96 B4)
HISTORY OF THE INTERNET
In their absorbing new book, "Where Wizards Stay Up Late," Katie Hafner and
Matthew Lyon tell the fascinating early history of the Internet. The book,
published by Simon & Schuster, has now arrived in bookstores, and an
excerpt will appear in the next issue of Educom Review. (Educom Review
Sep/Oct 96)
WEB DESIGN IS "ATROCIOUS"
Neville Brody, the graphics designer who worked on the movie "Mission:
Impossible," says that "ninety-nine percent of Web sites are atrocious.
They have bad design and even worse logic." Part of the problem is that
"there's nothing worse than engineers designing things and the Internet is
by and large designed by engineers. They can't see beyond technological
advance. Communication often isn't part of the language of the Internet,
which is something of a paradox." (The Guardian 7 Aug 96)
MICROSOFT USES "CONTENT" STRATEGY IN BROWSER WAR
Microsoft has struck deals that will allow it to bundle the Wall Street
Journal's Interactive Addition and ESPN Sports Zone into its new version 3.0
of Internet Explorer browser software, which will become available free over
the Internet at midnight tonight. Gartner Group analyst David Smith says:
"This ushers in a new era of content competition. If you look at how
Microsoft built their franchise in operating systems, it was by adding
applications and locking people in. Now content is the application of the
Internet." (New York Times 13 Aug 96 C2)