Mozilla loaded up for browser wars.

Thanks for #38. iCab is indeed a wonderful browser that all Mac users should try.

It's the browser you'd write if you could write browsers.

There was no way to set up my home machine to be part of the VPN. So what I did was to SSH to a unix box on the VPN and fire up Lynx from the command line. Clumsy, but effective.

You get a MacGyver award for that one.

That changes the day AOL adopts it (or Netscape). No one is going to ignore 35 million users; it doesn't make business sense.

Rrrrrrright, whatever you say, Nick. This is the same company that tried to use AOL mail internally and failed. It's taken Mozilla almost 5 years to even release anything resembling a decent build. You're giving them a lot of credit for getting Mozilla running for their main service. I doubt it.

Besides all that, AOL is turning out to be the albatross of Time-Warner. They have no growth projected on the horizon, the stock is in the toilet, and there are serious rumors that it will be spun off. AOL-TW has no investment capital to buy their way into broadband, either. The stock ain't worth jack. The only way they can raise money is to go begging by issuing junk bonds. Translation: AOL's R&D budget isn't what it used to be, and it ain't a technology company. It's a technology integrator -- and not a very good one, at that.

All that stuff you guys put in IIS that breaks Netscape will have to be taken out, or your customers will start pitching IIS out the door.

Nobody broke Netscape. It was a pile of crap to begin with. More likely, AOL (if it can even manage to get Mozilla running) is going to have to make sure that Mozilla is compatible with the vast majority of the Internet or suffer massive support costs from its users
(User: "Gee, AOL. Why doesn't the browser work when I browse to ABC.com?!?"
AOL: "Please hold. We're handling calls in the order they were received.")

This is a big spear you guys are going to take. It's going to foul up the .NET strategy something fierce.

Sure, Nick. And Java was supposed to replace Windows, too. I've heard this same BS time after time after time -- Lotus, IBM, Sun, Netscape, etc -- and, to date, it's never come to fruition.

You might have to actually make it open.

It already IS open, Nick (http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/sample.asp?url=/MSDN-FILES/027/001/901/msdncompositedoc.xml&frame=true, http://www.ecma.ch/ecma1/STAND/ecma-334.htm). It's more open than Java. Why don't you ask your friends at Sun why they haven't submitted Java to a standards body like ECMA?

In hindsight you probably should have bought Netscape yourselves, instead of leaving it out where AOL could get it. I'm sure that was proposed somewhere along the line; whoever shot it down made a mistake.

Actually, I agree with you on that. I think it would have been pretty satisfying for MS to buy Netscape and then fire fatboy wunderkind Andressen for reportedly labelling Windows "nothing more than a collection of poorly-written device drivers" and boasting how Netscape was going to replace Windows. Ha Ha Ha. Funny how Loudcloud is cozing up to MS now and hoping that crumbs will fall from the table.

This is the same company that tried to use AOL mail internally and failed. It's taken Mozilla almost 5 years to even release anything resembling a decent build

Nice canned arguments, but so what? Everybody has a few flops. I don't see that 'Bob' flopping has ended Microsoft's existence. And let's be honest about Windows: the first useable version of Windows was 3.0, and that was at least five years after announcement.

They have no growth projected on the horizon, the stock is in the toilet, and there are serious rumors that it will be spun off.

It's stuff like this that gets you labeled a Munchkin. Their user base is up, their sales are up, the advertising business is coming out of its slump (and everybody knows it). Your statement that their stock is in the tank is patently false. See, it's the damned lies that make you Munchkins so disagreeable.

I came across this nifty chart the other day. It compares percentage changes in the stock prices of AOL and MSFT over the last five years (adjusted for splits as necessary). I don't think anybody from Microsoft has room to talk about AOL's stock price.

User: "Gee, AOL. Why doesn't the browser work when I browse to ABC.com?!?"

More gratuitous slurs with no evidence backing them up. Yep, you're a Munchkin all right. I figured I shouldn't talk about this anymore without actually getting the darn thing, so I did. I'm typing this in Mozilla RC1 right now. Yeah, AOL will "get it running." It installs just fine. It runs just fine. I went over to abc.com and it renders that just fine. You're just making up slurs and throwing them out there. No one should believe a word of it. It's really a shame that a company the size of Microsoft has to send people around to Internet forums to bad-mouth its competitors with totally made-up lies and slurs. How do you sleep at night?

The intriguing tidbit of news is that Mozilla is running on Linux/Unix, Mac, and Windows.

No, portable software alone doesn't make it intriguing, of course, but what DOES make it intriguing is the fact that one day Browsers will replace operating systems, or put another way, Browsers will become full-fledged operating systems.

Add some additional OS functionality to Mozilla and you've got an environment that can run applets on Linux/Unix, Mac, and Windows systems from the same codebase with no recompiling. Add a little more functionality and Mozilla (or something like it from someone a little more clever) obviates the need for Linux/Unix, Mac, or Windows in the first place.

Even today, if my guys are writing VBscript or Javascript, they don't care about the client OS so much as they care that the Browser supports their scripting. This trend of Browsers becoming more important than OS's shows no sign of slowing down, either.

"It's going to foul up the .NET strategy something fierce."

The killer mistake that Microsoft made in Dot Net was in not being backwards compatible.

Less than 40% of legacy VB6 code runs in Dot Net. Entire corporate libraries of working, tested VB routines are now excluded from Dot Net, only to have to be re-written and re-tested.

Re-inventing that many wheels is NOT what corporations want to be spending their money and time on.

Companies want to be able to re-use code, not re-write and re-test code with each new release.

Nice canned arguments, but so what? Everybody has a few flops.

Except we're not talking about Bob, are we, Nick? MS never ran its business on Bob nor did it have any pretensions of doing so. But AOL did have the temerity to order its troops to use own internal crappy mail software -- and failed horribly by all reports. This isn't just a "few flops". This is more fundamental than that. It's a core failure.

Their user base is up, their sales are up, the advertising business is coming out of its slump (and everybody knows it). Your statement that their stock is in the tank is patently false. See, it's the damned lies that make you Munchkins so disagreeable.

Wall Street disagrees with you, Nick. What's the matter: Going long on AOL? Ha ha ha ha. Hope you have another 30 years til retirement.

I came across this nifty chart the other day. It compares percentage changes in the stock prices of AOL and MSFT over the last five years (adjusted for splits as necessary). I don't think anybody from Microsoft has room to talk about AOL's stock price.

But curiously, you neglected to include the period over the last month where AOL lost over 1/3 its market cap. Ouch. Smarts, eh?

I'm typing this in Mozilla RC1 right now. Yeah, AOL will "get it running." It installs just fine. It runs just fine. I went over to abc.com and it renders that just fine.

Hint: You weren't supposed to take "ABC.com" literally, aquamaroon. It was a placeholder for "any site which doesn't render properly and requires a service call." Sheez.

The killer mistake that Microsoft made in Dot Net was in not being backwards compatible.

You may be right. But probably not. You can still use VB6 to create COM+ components and integrate them as necessary into future VB.NET projects.

Give credit where it's due.

AOL is a shitty ISP but they rode the .com/Clinton bubble up much more the then MS. At near the top they traded their bubble stock for Time Warner stock. A company which is (and was) worth much more then them. AOL made their money the old fashoned way, by screwing Time Warner stockholders (Ted Turner hahahaha). It's the stockholders own fault. Hats off to the AOL execs that pulled it off, nice job redistributing the wealth.

The Clinton bubble pops. AOL/Time Warner is back to being worth more or less what Time Warner is (plus a tiny amount for AOL). LOL

Except we're not talking about Bob, are we, Nick?

You mention their flop, I mention your flop, and you say your flop doesn't count. Only their flop counts as a flop. Yeah, sure. What a Munchkin you are.

Wall Street disagrees with you, Nick.

You don't speak for Wall Street. You're just saying that because that's what Muchkins do... they say stuff. Most of it is crap, but they keep saying it anyway, in the hopes there might be somebody who buys it. That AOL's sales are up and their user base is up are matters of public record; your saying that "Wall Street disagrees" just marks you as one of those Munchkins who will say any old thing, so long as it's derogatory. Whether it's true or not never matters to Munchkins.

Yeah, I left out the last month. I'm not a day trader. I don't pay much attention to what happens to billion-dollar companies over 30-day periods. MSFT took a dive in the last 30 days, too. Does this mean MSFT will never come back up again? I doubt it. Same thing with AOL.

You weren't supposed to take "ABC.com" literally, aquamaroon. It was a placeholder

I know. You were just throwing a name out there of a site that Mozilla supposedly couldn't render, to put the idea in people's heads that Mozilla is somehow deficient. You had no basis for saying it, you were just pumping the usual Microsoft bilge, casting aspersions on Microsoft's competitors without any facts. It appalls me that a company as large as Microsoft has as one of its core business practices sending people around to Internet forums to bad-mouth its competitors. That is one sick corporate culture you have there.

You mention their flop, I mention your flop, and you say your flop doesn't count. Only their flop counts as a flop. Yeah, sure. What a Munchkin you are.

Right, Nick. You equate AOL's failure to integrate AOL mail internally with Microsoft Bob. Nice equivalence. Anybody with a lick of common sense realizes that the two aren't even remotely close in scale.

You don't speak for Wall Street.

You're right: I don't. But I never said I did. I'll leave that to Fortune magazine, http://www.fortune.com/articles/206105.html
http://www.business2.com/articles/web/0,1653,39682,FF.html?ref=cnet
http://wsrn.com/apps/news/art.xpl?id=4257734&f=NEWS&s=AOL

MSFT took a dive in the last 30 days, too. Does this mean MSFT will never come back up again?

MSFT's days are numbered, Nicky. So are AOL's.

It appalls me that a company as large as Microsoft has as one of its core business practices sending people around to Internet forums to bad-mouth its competitors. That is one sick corporate culture you have there.

Ah, I see. Anybody who disagrees with you must necessarily be a MS stooge. Nice logic. Do yourself a favor, Nicky: Don't operate heavy equipment on an empty brain.

You equate AOL's failure to integrate AOL mail internally with Microsoft Bob.

Yep, I sure do. Both were projects with lots of people that spent lots of money, and they both fell on their butt. Everybody has these. If a company does not have any flops, it means they aren't trying enough new things. To come in here, like you did, and say, "Oh look, these guys had a flop... they must be incompetent" is just silly advocacy. It's no more than a taunt. That's all the more apparent as you sit there and claim that your own flop doesn't count.

Fortune magazine

Oh good, you have a Fortune magazine article. At least you looked something up, I'll give you credit for that.

Fortune is one of those magazines that likes to talk out of both sides of its mouth. In their 'think pieces,' they complain that U.S. companies are too focused on quarterly earnings, and they need to take a longer view. So some guy takes their advice... instead of tweaking his quarterly income statement to keep the day traders happy, he makes a bold, long-term move. He buys a huge company with real assets -- cables in the ground, movie libraries, a television network, successful magazines -- and he buys all this with stock, not a dime of cash. What's more, he does it right at the peak of the Internet bubble, so his stock is at its all-time high when he does the deal. He has to know when he does this that somewhere down the road, this is going to punch a hole in a couple of quarterly earnings statements. But so what?

Somebody who was not focused on quarterly earnings statements would call this the Deal of the Century. In fact I think Rupert Murdoch did call it a 'stroke of financial genius' or something like that. AOL acquired billions in revenue-producing assets for zero cash.

People with brains understand -- and understood when it happened -- that this is not a quarterly earnings play. This is true Long Term Guts Ball. The resulting thing is going to eat all sorts of nasty accounting charges when the stock market bubble bursts and the "price" (no cash, remember) paid for Time-Warner looks overvalued on the balance sheet. But they are not the kind of losses that make the company spend cash; it's just the accountants adjusting the book value of an asset to reflect new information about the post-bubble AOL stock price.

So comes now Fortune magazine to bitch that the quarterly earnings statement looks like Hell. This after AOL has just pulled off a spectacularly brilliant financial maneuver that puts them in an order-of-magnitude better position to face the future.

I'm not impressed. Once the Street mavens get done trashing Steve Case for his accounting loss, they'll go back to bitching that managements are too focused on quarterly earnings.

In fact AOL may already be falling into that trap. They have a COO, one of the guys who came over from Time-Warner, who thinks that AOL should pull in its horns on converting to broadband and concentrate instead on maintaining the dial-up base. Now that is Mister Quarterly Earnings talking. If Steve Case doesn't fire that guy in the next 90 days just for thinking like that, then I'll start to believe the theory that AOL is another Boeing, where the acquiree is taken over from the inside by the ex-acquired, who promptly turn it into the loser they came from.

Anybody who disagrees with you must necessarily be a MS stooge. Nice logic.

The existence of Microsoft Munchkins is well known. Here's John Dvorak in PC Week:

Microsoft Munchkins Are Back at It Again Dept.: Will Microsoft ever learn? Some years back Microsoft employees were notorious for anonymously joining online communities, representing themselves as everyday Joes who had good things to say about Microsoft and trash to say about OS/2. Now, according to a New York Times article, at least one employee has been caught posing as a civilian and posting an anti- AOL message with a Yahoo! mail account. The deep headers indicated he was actually inside the Microsoft corporate firewall when he sent the note. These Microsoft folks apparently don't realize it's harder to hide on the Net than they think.

I was jousting with Microsoft Munchkins on Compuserve ten years ago. It's the same act now as it was then. Lies, innuendo, and cutesy one-liners, all offered up by guys who claim they're just little ol' me. Except that they are following a script, which becomes more obvious when multiples of them show up on a thread. Sometimes you can even see the same turns of phrase posted by different Munchkins in different forums and newsgroups.

GREAT!! I can get a NEW BROWSER that works ALMOST as good as the one I have (except for "a few flies in the ointment...")

I Can't WAIT~!! And it is OPEN SOURCE TOO!!! (For all those times my gramma wants to tweak the source code...)

< sarcasm off >

"You may be right. But probably not. You can still use VB6 to create COM+ components and integrate them as necessary into future VB.NET projects."

Ick.

You call that trick "backwards compatibility"??

Ouch.

No matter. It is my firm that is working on a product that will permit VB Dot Net to access legacy VB 6 forms and code without conversion steps.

It's a good thing that I didn't swallow that MS Kool-aid, otherwise there would have apparently been no company working on this project...