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0 pointsThe_Colonel2y ago0 comments

> Wow. Historical revisionism if ever I saw it. Netscape imploded like the fall of Rome

It looks you concede the fact that IE was clearly better in its 4.0-6.0 releases than its competition (chiefly Netscape), but hate this fact so much, that you then still somehow dispute it.

MS had its usual anticompetitive practices, but that does not disqualify the fact that IE was at the time also technical state of the art.

(My teenager MS hating me at the time reacted similarly and stubbornly used/advocated Netscape/Opera anyway).

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lll-o-lll2y ago

> It looks you concede the fact that IE was clearly better in its 4.0-6.0 releases than its competition

Yes, but only because they cheated. They poisoned their opponents and claimed victory after they fell over. Just because the new releases showed steady improvements while Netscape was thrashing around in its death throes doesn’t mean they were “technically excellent” in any meaningful sense. And once it was clear that Netscape wasn’t going to be getting back up they completely stopped trying. That’s the bit I’m most annoyed about.

The_ColonelOP2y ago

Microsoft's cheating had no influence on the fact that Netscape's engineering (and/or its management) messed up bad. The decision to do a complete rewrite (Mozilla) was the final nail in the coffin.

lll-o-lll2y ago

> Microsoft's cheating had no influence on the fact that Netscape's engineering (and/or its management) messed up bad.

I completely disagree with this. The unfair competitive advantage that MS created was directly causal in Netscape acting out of desperation. Desperate companies do desperate things. Often really stupid desperate things.

If they had continued with the dominant market share and comfortable revenue stream, they would have made slow comfortable decisions. Instead they made rash, desperate decisions and imploded.

Microsoft had no valid justification to take that much market share that quickly (Netscape was much better for the first couple of versions). They could only do it because they could leverage their OS.

If it had been a fair playing field, the outcome might have been very different.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsThe_Colonel2y ago0 comments

> Wow. Historical revisionism if ever I saw it. Netscape imploded like the fall of Rome

It looks you concede the fact that IE was clearly better in its 4.0-6.0 releases than its competition (chiefly Netscape), but hate this fact so much, that you then still somehow dispute it.

MS had its usual anticompetitive practices, but that does not disqualify the fact that IE was at the time also technical state of the art.

(My teenager MS hating me at the time reacted similarly and stubbornly used/advocated Netscape/Opera anyway).

0 comments

lll-o-lll2y ago

> It looks you concede the fact that IE was clearly better in its 4.0-6.0 releases than its competition

The_ColonelOP2y ago

Microsoft's cheating had no influence on the fact that Netscape's engineering (and/or its management) messed up bad. The decision to do a complete rewrite (Mozilla) was the final nail in the coffin.

lll-o-lll2y ago

> Microsoft's cheating had no influence on the fact that Netscape's engineering (and/or its management) messed up bad.

If they had continued with the dominant market share and comfortable revenue stream, they would have made slow comfortable decisions. Instead they made rash, desperate decisions and imploded.

If it had been a fair playing field, the outcome might have been very different.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse