[tubebender]

"
Why is MS excited about a 96% market share for a free product? The higher the market share, the higher the support/maintenance costs for MS... with no associated revenue. It ain't like people are going to stop using WindowsXP because it doesn't have an integrated web browser. "

Shouldn't the question be...How much will MS charge for IE and how soon ?

[TheEngineer]

I used to agree with you. Back when they were destroying Netscape, I figured they would eventually start charging when Netscape was out of the picture. But I don't see how they can successfully charge in this environment. There are too many free web browsers out there... Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, etc.

IMO, IE is the best browser out there. But that doesn't translate into MS having the ability to charge money when there is competition that doesn't charge. Back in the days of IE 2.0 versus Netscape 2.0, Netscape had the better quality... but they couldn't beat free. Computer users, on the whole, are really a bunch of cheapskates. :-)