Jack Park [mailto:jackpark@gmail.com] writes:
>
> This paper
> http://www.strategicadvantage.com/simplifyingcomplexity.pdf
> turns out to be an interesting read. Nothing about graphics, and
> that's probably not important right now. At issue in the universe of
> "wicked problems" is the high dimensionality of the space. The linked
> paper presents a set of view on such issues, nicely annotating a
> corporate history.
>
> Jack (01)
One of the things that the paper cited above does in describing
Microsoft's reaction to Netscape's sudden success is (typically)
leave out the fact that Microsoft did not initially develop its
own browser. Internet Explorer didn't just appear like magic. The
versions of IE up until at 1996 were not written by Microsoft but
were licensed from Spyglass, who were themselves the licensors
and maintainers of the original NCSA Mosaic code (and employed
some of the original people from NCSA on staff in their offices
in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois). Spyglass had an active, prosperous
OEM business selling their improved Mosaic code to other companies,
who merely put their look and feel on the product. In addition to
Microsoft, Bank of America and AOL were among their other big
customers. (02)
When in the paper Saunders and Harris note: (03)
"The Internet Platform & Tools Division was created
in February 1996 and by July had exploded to 2,500
employees. And Microsoft changed its strategy midstream
on its proprietary MSN designed to compete with AOL.
Microsoft forged a deal with AOL to have its Internet
Explorer as the primary web browser on AOL in return
for putting AOL in Windows 95, ending the exclusive
edge for MSN." (04)
By this point Microsoft were actively developing IE in-house,
using the knowledge they'd gained from the Mosaic code base,
though I would guess the original IE was likely an original
development (it was unstable and proprietary enough to suggest
that). For those that can remember the "browser wars", by the
end of 1997 Microsoft were claiming that they had more downloads
than Netscape, but when Spyglass tried to bill them for the
number of downloads they'd publicly claimed (worth about US$16M),
Microsoft were only willing to cough up $12M. That difference
is a lot of money to a company of around 160 employees. In the
end, Microsoft (to my knowledge) didn't pay the difference, and
they ended their contract with Spyglass. At the same time, they'd
also taken one of Spyglass' biggest customers, AOL, and removed
even more from the revenue stream. (05)
By this time Spyglass' management were deciding the OEM browser
business wasn't profitable, and began trying to branch out into
other areas. They didn't survive, and were bought up by a company
that was then bought up by another company. I was among the rats
that left that sinking ship. I'd been hired into a small company
in Cambridge, MA, called Stonehand, that had a high tech toolkit
of SGML and internationalized display tools, and was brought on
board by Glenn Adams, the principal author of the Unicode standard.
The day I was hired I was informed that Stonehand had been bought
by Spyglass. Sometimes things don't work out as one hopes... (06)
I've been reading Raymond Chandler novels lately and the whole
OEM browser fiasco reminds me that you don't go up against the
mob unless you like your face bloodied. You just leave town. (07)
Murray (08)
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://www.altheim.com/murray/
Strategic Services Development Manager
The Open University Library and Learning Resources Centre
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK . (09)
Short of taking the current president of the United States
by the scruff of the neck and dunking his head deep into the
rapidly melting Arctic ice cap, what more did the Earth need
to do to make someone listen to its cry for help?
-- Simon Schama, The Story So Far
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1675173,00.html (010)
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