Caught in |
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by Al Massey |
The blood bath continues. It's just a matter of time until the Gatesonians led by their dark duke Bill complete their pillage of the kingdom of Netscape. While Netscape's Navigator continues to dominate the browser market, it is becoming apparent to even the most casual "browser war" observer that the MicroSoftites are closing in on the gate.
A report just released by Jupiter Communications, Inc. (http://www.jup.com) indicates the once commanding lead enjoyed by Netscape is dwindling. Drawing on their own research and that of Interse Corp, Jupiter pegs Navigator's market share at 59 percent and Internet Explorer at 31 percent. If the trend continues, and there is every indication it will, Explorer will capture 52 percent of the market by year's end and Navigator will drop to around 38 percent.
The decline will come because of Microsoft's Active Desktop technology that is designed to make Explorer indistinguishable from other parts of Windows. Research indicates this will make it very hard for Netscape to promote a branded browser in such a generic environment. Jupiter expects Netscape's market share to fall significantly among consumers if it does not introduce more specific consumer oriented functions, especially if the company cannot find a way to integrate as smoothly with the Windows 97 desktop as the next version of Internet Explorer.
"Another way to tell if your ISP is up to par: Their promo materials use the words `information' and `superhighway' in the same sentence."
From the "I calls `em like I sees `em" department. Some months back I was called to task for warning folks off some seemingly low cost Internet Service Providers, particularly IDT. At the time I got considerable heat from IDT users who perceived me as being unfair to their favorite provider.
What caused my hard drive to upchuck was IDT's practice of advertising low-low unlimited "all-you-can-eat" FULL INTERNET service. Their print ads showed a GUI browser surfing the WWW and advertising at $15 month. However, when you called up what you got was a dial-up shell account for that price. OH! You want PPP? That will be $29. To make matters worse tech support was available through 1-900 service and cost as much as $4.50 per minute.
Well, six state attorney generals, Texas included, spurred by angry Netizens have reached an agreement with IDT to cease and desist this practice. Under the agreement IDT will pay a $250,000 fine and reimburse customers who have experienced long distance charges. The agreement also bars IDT from running ads misrepresenting rates and services. A side note to this mess is that IDT laid off 120 telemarketers from its dial-up Net access division.
"Yet another way to tell if your ISP is up to par: They hawk both domain names and Rolexes on street corners."
I recently took part in hearings by the House and Senate on Encryption Technology. Virtually every witness was in agreement and called for increased deployment of strong encryption technologies worldwide to combat criminal computer hackers who pose an increasing threat to the most computerized society on mother earth.
An offshoot of the hearings is a bill introduced by Rep. Bill Goodlatte, R-Va. designed to put an end to nearly all restrictions on exports of encryption technology. The Safety and Freedom Through Encryption Act now boasts 55 sponsors, including 16 House Democrats.
This flies in the face of the Clinton administration desire for a solution that included "public-key" escrow. The administration has opposed all efforts to liberalize encryption controls, saying widespread encryption technology would thwart legal eavesdropping efforts. Instead, the Clinton administration has proposed that encryption users place their software keys in escrow with the government or otherwise make coded messages breakable by government agents.
"The Cali cartel, Saddam Hussein and Mu'ammar al-Gadhafi aren't going to put their keys into escrow," Goodlatte said. "Nor, by the way, is the CIA going to put its keys into an escrow account, and probably with good reasons."
"When a programmer goes to sleep he prepares two glasses next to his bed: One - full with water in case he will want to drink at night. Another - empty, in case he won't."
Billion dollar corporations are hard to kill, no matter how hard some executives try. General Motors tried to give away its market to the foreign automakers, and who can forget Coca-Cola and its "new and improved" formula. Now we have Steve Case and his merry band of trouble makers at AOL.
After years of over selling AOL's capacity with free time and free disks, and losing credibility with its users, Case brought on board Mr clean-jeans Bill Razouk, and placed him in the office of the president. Razouk, the Fed Express whiz kid, has a sterling reputation in the market and it looked like AOL was in line to capitalize on his reputation.
But alas, Razouk clearly saw the future and his message to AOL was to get its house in order before trying to resume its pell-mell growth. "Clamp down on marketing," he said. "Make the network more reliable," he said. "Get profitable," he said. Sounds like a good prescription for long-term health to me.
Razouk attempted to bring the same reliability to AOL that has make FedEx such a screaming success. If you "absolutely, positively," have to have it there overnight call FedEx.
Four months later and Razouk has been fired! The message seems clear. Case and company don't want to see the truth. They continue to sacrifice long term growth for short term profits. Case is still playing cutesy with the bottom line and has had to write off so many marketing expenses that he has almost wiped out all of the company's profits. Showing that he has only about four neurons in firing order, Case has wiped out the one thing that set AOL apart from the other online dogs' community. If the users can't connect they can't communicate with the AOL forums or other communities. WAY TO GO STEVE.
HR Manager to job candidate `I see you've had no computer training. Although that qualifies you for upper management, it means you're under-qualified for our entry level positions'."
The BellHeads are all set to jump on the market and cash in on the growth in electronic commerce. US West is all set to launch a network to link corporate buyers and sellers over the WWW, and Ameritech is rolling out a service to help issue government bonds.
US West's networking unit will let large and small suppliers sell goods to large buyers, including the federal government. This will compete with existing efforts such as Net Inc.'s IndustryNet. Together these services allow corporate buyers to search and buy from sellers' catalogs online and for sellers to bid on buyers' procurement contracts. The US West network, set to go online in the second quarter of this year, will let smaller suppliers that don't use traditional electronic data interchange software sell to large buyers that do use EDI.
The service will use Krakatoa Web Catalog Publisher software from Cadis Inc. in Boulder, Colo., to publish searchable supplier catalogs. Ameritech's offering, public finance.com (PFC), gives bond-issuing teams a place to write, review, and revise the documents necessary to issue a government bond.
"This is invaluable in terms of accelerating the process and saving on overnight [shipping] costs," says John Petersen, president of Government Finance Group in Arlington, Va. Petersen, a financial adviser, was a member of a team that used the test version of PFC to create the official documentation for a $26 million bond issued by Arlington County last October.
PFC works with all spreadsheet and word-processing formats. Initially, Ameritech, in Chicago, will use proprietary software instead of browsers as a front end to PFC, citing a lack of security and functionality in existing browsers. An eventual migration to standard browsers is likely. Pricing is $99 per seat for the software, plus $9 an hour. It's all happening on the Internet.
"Dilbert's first Law Of Work: If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights."
Word just in from Dimension X announcing Liquid Reality Composer, a 3D multimedia authoring tool for nonprogrammers.
This Java-based, point-and-click 3D tool enables developers to create and manipulate animated, textual, audio, and interactive content within a 3D environment. Designers can also edit and view VRML 2.0 content from within the same browser, without having to launch a separate VRML-compliant viewer.
"Most 3D software applications only fit the needs of one constituency, artists OR developers. What makes this tool remarkable is that it offers the power of Java extensibility to programmers and an easy graphical interface for artists to add behaviors and animation to 3D scenes—all the complexities such as routing are hidden but easily accessible," said Charles Loop, director of 3D tools at Dimension X.
Liquid Reality is an open, object-oriented platform that incorporates Java with VRML, providing users with a customizable interface for creating 3D application and other high-performance 3D graphics development tools. You heard it here first, and it will be available for Windows 95 systems in April 1997.
"Dilbert's second law Of Work: A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the butt."
Shared Medical Systems Corporation (SMS) has launched the Internet Technology Services (ITS), a program designed to integrate the Internet into health care solutions.
The program consists of three parts, the first of which involves bringing the Web to those involved in clinical research, communication, and education.
The second part of the program includes home page design and Web hosting services, and the third includes interactive Web applications. These SMS applications will enable users to access patient information as well as other critical health care-related data.
"SMS ITS strategy provides Internet connectivity, support standards, expanded administrative capabilities, and the ability to utilize SMS applications from remote locations via the Internet, further increasing the value of our customers' investments in SMS solutions," said Alan Gold, Vice President of Marketing and Education Services.
Other services SMS will offer include a NewsServer for storing USENET newsfeeds and e-mail services.
Al Massey is a HAL-PC member.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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