"Deloptes"  wrote

| > You really thought that back then? It's what allowed
| > them to beat Netscape. For years it was a brilliant
| > design. It still is. It's just not safe. I write a lot of
| > HTAs, using script and COM for the functionality and
| > IE for the GUI.
|
| They just made IE part of the OS and this was the reason for the trails.
|

  That was certainly a big part of it. "Cutting off Netscape's
air supply." But IE was also far more functional. Webmasters
wanted to write to it, because it was essentially allowing
for compiled window elements and DLL access in a webpage.
And those could easily be custom made. Also, MS made their
browser custom designed for corporate IT people. It could
be secretly controlled behind the backs of users. So corporations
wanted it in-house. IE is still around because businesses still
use HTAs in-house.

  I don't think Bill Gates gets enough credit. He was greedy.
He was arrogant. Microsoft tends to invent ways to vacuum
wallets without thinking through whether they'll sell. But
most of what they do is ahead of its time. They came out
with ActiveX decades before highly interactive webpages.
They came out with Passport long before "Log in with Apple".
They came out with Hailstorm long before anyone was doing
web services. They created .Net in 2001, specially designed
for web services. They invented the SPOT watch years before
the iPhone, with the idea that everyone would be like Dick
Tracy, calling their dentist and checking sports scores.

  It was all years ahead of its time. But it all failed, partly
for that reason and partly because those products were
90% money grab and 10% product. Gates was not as devious,
nor as design-oriented, as Jobs. And there was the stroke
of evil genius that kicked it all off: Active Desktop. Turn
Windows into a webpage and show ads. That was at least
10 years ahead of its time. There were just a few minor
glitches: People had 56k connections and no one wanted
Disney ads on their computer. But Gates foresaw the
sleazy consumer service Web long before it existed. Greed
is genius.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05