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[REBOL] Re: Browser gripe

From: pwoodward:cncdsl at: 15-Mar-2002 16:59

Ryan, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Cole" <[ryanc--iesco-dms--com]>
> AOL's and M$ business plans appear to be heading into direct conflict, M$
with
> hailstorm and AOL with Red Hat. I dont see AOL wanting to depend on M$
for
> even a dial tone. If AOL does decide to keep using IE for AOL for
Windows, if
> such a thing will even exist soon, I am sure it will be purely because AOL
will
> want to exercise its power over M$, though an unlikely scenario.
Absolutely true. Essentially I'm sure it comes down to money. With the AOL/Time Warner merger, there's a lot of political infighting, and much has centered around profitability and growth. For instance, the magazine portion of the ATW empire is supposed to grow their readership by 20% a year. If they don't, that magazine is sold off. So I'm sure AOL has some pressure. It'll be relatively easy for them to grow by 20% yearly - all you have to do is consider how many people are _not_ online. But, I'm sure there is some pressure to improve profitability - not to mention reduce dependencies. So, moving to the Gecko rendering engine for their browser and new AOL client will mean that they don't need to pay MS for the IE component. Once again, rumors are circulating about AOL and RedHat - mostly centered around AOL using Linux systems to replace portions of their existing server farm (or perhaps expand it). Again, that could work out to be a huge cost saver over time. Whether it's true or not, who knows. But, as another list member pointed out, it's unlikely that they have any plans for a desktop AOL client. Why bother - most Linux users are likely to prefer their own, plain-jane ISP anyway. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Mozilla 0.98+ (now .99) and IE 5/6. Both browsers are fast, render pages well, and very compatible with one another. NS 4.x version are all terrible - as a web applications developer, it's a major hassle to code for NS 4.x - both in terms of HTML and JavaScript. Things like CSS are actually rendered _more_ correctly on IE and Moz. And hey when you use JavaScript, the DOM isn't all messed up. About a year ago someone raised the interesting point that as NS had fallen to around 10% market share, that web consultancies should consider charging extra to code pages that function identically on IE and NS... Not that I necessarilly agree, but it's interesting to consider when you realize how many services charge extra for special cases. - Porter Woodward