Will Microsoft Makes Its Browser Better?

Dom · Oct 7, 2004, 05:28 PM

The success of alternative browsers such as Mozilla Foundation's Firefox may ultimately have an unexpected side effect. It may be causing Microsoft to be more aggressive in leveraging its dominance of Internet client software, says Marc Andreessen, one of the founders of the browser company that Microsoft beat out in the late 1990s, Netscape Communications.

After Internet Explorer surpassed Netscape as the dominant Web client, browser innovation at Microsoft "pretty much stopped in 1998," Andreessen said during a session at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco this week.

This means that the company has not done all it could have done to use the browser to strengthen its other products, such as its MSN service, or to prevent competitive Internet companies such as Yahoo from growing, he says.

"One of the most amazing things over the last six or seven years is watching Microsoft basically get a monopoly over the browser and then not use it," he says.

[Read More]

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Source: PCWorld

Logla · Oct 7, 2004, 09:03 PM

I for one would like to see tabbed browsing and better managment of favourites.

Having to open more than one instance of ie is something that puts me right off using it. And not being able to single click on some of my favourite web pages is a major pain.

It is about time ms started to develop one of their most important products and now that they are likely to be forced into removing it from future copies of windows, there is going to have to be massive changes in order to keep that market dominance.

Oct 7, 2004, 05:28 PM	#1
Dom DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 12,940 Rep Power: 0	Will Microsoft Makes Its Browser Better? The success of alternative browsers such as Mozilla Foundation's Firefox may ultimately have an unexpected side effect. It may be causing Microsoft to be more aggressive in leveraging its dominance of Internet client software, says Marc Andreessen, one of the founders of the browser company that Microsoft beat out in the late 1990s, Netscape Communications. After Internet Explorer surpassed Netscape as the dominant Web client, browser innovation at Microsoft "pretty much stopped in 1998," Andreessen said during a session at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco this week. This means that the company has not done all it could have done to use the browser to strengthen its other products, such as its MSN service, or to prevent competitive Internet companies such as Yahoo from growing, he says. "One of the most amazing things over the last six or seven years is watching Microsoft basically get a monopoly over the browser and then not use it," he says. [Read More] ______________________ Source: PCWorld

Oct 7, 2004, 09:03 PM	#2
Logla HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 3,311 Rep Power: 62	I for one would like to see tabbed browsing and better managment of favourites. Having to open more than one instance of ie is something that puts me right off using it. And not being able to single click on some of my favourite web pages is a major pain. It is about time ms started to develop one of their most important products and now that they are likely to be forced into removing it from future copies of windows, there is going to have to be massive changes in order to keep that market dominance.