[Arkinsaw]

That is like saying if a DVD manufacturer dominated enough of the market they could create a format that would not play movies produced by Paramount and therefore run them out of business.

One more then. DVD manufacturers could have established a standard of one-use DVD's. Paramount would have much preferred that. But they did not have the power to enforce that, since they were not the DVD manufacturers with an 80% market share. They would have preferred not to have writable DVD's, they would have preferred not have ever had writable VHS. Their content WILL PLAY on all this stuff, but they do not have control over the way it is distributed to the end user or what they can do with it on their end. They can influence what the DVD manufacturers do and what the standards are but are limited.

Microsoft on the other hand has had over 70-80% control over the client-side of internet content distribution. It has had a huge capability to write the standards, influence the standards (or "extend" the standards if it doesn't go their way).

Now even if IE withered and died they would have influence. But it would be more along the lines of your Paramount example. They certainly would give up the power to "extend" the standards on the client side.

Take Microsoft music....
System requirements for the Microsoft service preview release limit use to U.S. consumers using Microsoft Internet Explorer with ActiveX, a technology used in online transactions, on Windows 98 or later operating systems.

That means no support for Mac users, no access for non-U.S. music fans and no support for other browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox.

Thats an easy path to take when IE6 has 80% browser share. But if Firefox were at 80% then MS Music would have to be changing their little concept there. They would not be in quite as much control of what they were doing. It would certainly not let them go for ActiveX arbitrarily without considering what they were doing.

I'm sure that Microsoft could handle those situations. But they would no longer be making the decisions on the client side. Thats not cash gone, but it is power gone, power over the distribution channel which translates to cash on down the road.

Thats my take, and we shall see what IE7 does, how much Firefox grows, when IE7 gets released, etc. Until then, we just don't know.

Flame away.

[browardchad]

I've been watching your "discussion," and I can see both sides of the argument re IE and Microsoft, but I think there's another important factor at work here, the reason people are dumping IE: security.

I'm not a techie, but as someone who's been using Windows since its first incarnation in Aldus Pagemaker, I thought I'd never stray from MS.

After his past year of almost daily security warnings, holes, updates, etc., I've spent megabucks on security programs, and have spent countless wasted hours scanning for spyware, trojans, worms, et al, with the constant worry that the computers I use to run our business would be compromised.

I'm typing this from Firefox on a Xandros Linux (which was designed for the non-techie) -- and no, Linux won't run all those Windows programs I need to conduct business, but it will keep me saner and safer as my main internet interface.

Of course, it can be argued that MS has all those security holes because it is one hugely distributed target, whereas Linux and Apple aren't worth the trouble for hackers, but for now, I'd rather spend more time on keeping my business going than worrying about the next security picadillo, and the best way to insure that with minimal efforts is to keep the XP boxes offline.

My (rather longwinded) point is that if MS doesn't pay attention to the Firefox trend, they will miss the signs that the little guy is not only tired of IE's holes, they are also tired of fending off attacks on Windows itself. XP is awesome, but taking it on the internet is now like going into battle with a thousand pounds of armor that may or may not protect you.