Re: Time Cover Story: Winner Take All.

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Wed, 11 Sep 96 02:26:40 PDT


There are more interesting nuggets as followups in this week's
Time. I would forward them to FoRK, but I don't feel like
reformatting the tables in the following pages. So visit them
if you're interested.

1. What It Means - Gates vs. Barksdale on general Internet questions:

http://pathfinder.com/time/magazine/domestic/1996/960916/what.html

Shoot, Gates invokes the telephone analogy again:
"Microsoft is betting that the Internet will continue to grow in
popularity until it is as mainstream as the telephone is today."

Barksdale pumps up the numbers (# downloads != # users, you know):
"Forty million Netscape Navigator users in less than two years, more
users than any PC application in history--that tells the story."

Brother Bill lies through his teeth:
"Microsoft supports the Mac as well as the PC with its Office and
Internet Explorer products, making that another good choice."

Barksdale, what's with this non-PC crack?
"Netscape software will run on 17 platforms, so users can choose the
computer they want, whether it is a Mac or a PC or even a non-PC device."

Gates On hyping the Internet:
"People are overestimating where the Internet will be in two years but
underestimating where it will be in 10 years."

Not to be outdone, Barksdale shoots for 500 million:
"Netscape Navigator may run on 500 million devices in five years."

Gates on a complete paradigm shift:
"The Internet is central to everything we are doing."

Barksdale invokes carnivore imagery:
"Software for the Internet and intranets is our business.
We don't have any other business focus. We're like the pig at
the ham-and-egg breakfast--we're committed. Everybody else is
like the chicken--they're involved."

Gates on why to use IE:
"Internet Explorer allows people to get the most out
of the Web by being compatible with all Web pages,
including the exciting pages that take advantage of
ActiveX."

Barkey on why to use Navigator:
"I can list at least two dozen technology features that
answer that question--support for live audio and live video,
Internet telephony, Java, a vast array of plug-ins, high-speed
performance--but I think the real reason is that it preserves
consumer choice."

There are also pages on how the Internet works and a comparison
of IE and Navigator from

http://pathfinder.com/time/magazine/domestic/toc/latest.html

Hey judge, am I absolved of all wrongdoing?

=) Adam

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu

We should question it all; poke fun at it all; piss off on it all; rail
against it all; and most importantly, for Christ's sake, laugh at it
all. Because the only thing separating holy writ from complete bullshit
is your perspective.
-- Dennis Miller