LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

There are people who control what you buy, read and watch on TV. These evil people conspire to give us, among other things, crappy TV, stupid tabloid news and the fiendish paparazzi. It is alleged that Bill Gates is one of these people and has destroyed Apple, taken over every computer, and is now trying to take over television, telephones and the Internet.

The truth is that the very people who want to control you are the people who don’t like your choices and try to blame others for your actions. They demonize Bill, ask politicians for government intervention, and constantly bad-mouth the very people who meet our needs.

Janet Reno has attacked Bill Gates for his attempt to keep his browser on the desktop of new computers with Windows installed. This all sounds diabolical and competition-limiting, but! The browser is becoming an integral part of the Windows operating system. Back in the (almost) beginning of the Web, Bill Gates wrote an internal memo to the Microsoft staff. The early 1995 letter (paraphrased) said that any product developed from that date forward must be Web-centric. Bill at that time recognized the future role the Web would play in people’s lives. Back then, WWWiz was a brand-new magazine, the Web was the smaller part of the Internet, and most people I talked to didn’t know what a banner ad was.

I remember why Microsoft stayed on top back when IBM first tried to walk away from a standard operating system. IBM was not backwardly compatible, so you couldn’t run a lot of your "old" software. Whether it was your favorite game or your word processor, most people preferred to keep the compatibility, at a small cost of becoming bloatware, vs. the potential advantage in speed and efficiency of a complete change (real-life cost tradeoffs). We all voted with our dollars and the current Microsoft is the result.

The battlefield today is the Web. Current projections call for the Web to generate more advertising money than Radio will next year. The average person spends 13 to 14 hours per week on the Internet. Most of that time comes from what would have been TV time. It’s clear that Bill was insightful when he made that decision back in 1995, and we must agree because we’re doing what he predicted.

If his products continue to be good he will keep selling them. However, Netscape Navigator still maintains the larger share of the market. I use Netscape Communicator and don’t plan to change immediately. The people I know who are changing to Explorer are changing because the product offers things they want—not because they feel forced to change.

But what about the other browsers almost no one remembers? You know, the companies that were selling their browsers while Netscape was giving theirs away so they could sell server software? Where was Netscape’s sense of fairness then?

Last year at COMDEX, Netscape was selling its version of a desktop that would be available to compete with Windows. A lot of the press were watching and if Netscape had had a real desktop, they would have had the perfect opportunity to compete with Windows when they had 80% of the browser market.

How can Microsoft make a new operating system now that does not include Internet access? The new Windows will have a seamless connection between the world and your desktop, and you’ll probably run down to buy one, not because Bill has coerced you but because he’s made it easy for you to explore the new frontiers while maintaining some backwards compatibility.