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Remember Cyberdog? The multifunction 'parts' built on Apple's OpenDoc (at the time, a rival to Microsoft's OLE), which combined browser, telnet, email and news. Developed to demonstrate the power and simplicity of OpenDoc, Cyberdog was designed to show you didn't have to write bloated, RAM-hogging applications to get performance and features. OpenDoc, of course, died. As did Cyberdog. Fast forward to 2002. The chaps and chapettes over at The Register suspect it might be a jolly good show if Apple, with its recent AOL deal, develops a killer browser on the back of the OS X version of Mozilla. And makes IE the spy who had to go back out into the cold (that's an obscure pun for those who remember IE was originally based on Spyglass). Sound far-fetched, asks The Register? It is. But perhaps not all of it. After all, the Apple-AOL deal can hardly have had Gates doing handstands over in Redmond. At IGM, we think that Apple's not yet at the stage where every controversial carefully-scripted statement Steve's about to make is passed around the M$ executive suite. Take, for instance, his controlled anger over the original Microsoft settlement, which included a billion bucks worth (mostly Windows and PC stuff) of gear for schools. No way did the Chief Fruit Picker take that lying down. The big problem with Mac OS X browser sluggishness, which has been well documented here and elsewhere, is that the code is not yet optimized for browser performance, and MS can certainly use that as a defense, particularly as iCab, Opera Software and the Omni Group have made similar statements. Jaguar (OS X 10.2) will hopefully resolve many of these issues. But while these companies have delivered frequent revisions to their browsers, Microsoft has dragged its feet on OS 9 and X versions of IE. A 5.1 version of IE for OS 9 came out a few weeks ago, while Windows has had 6.0 for some time. MS also likes to make a splash with its numeric revisions; a dot-something update doesn't get a lot of press, while whole number updates get Mac users talking, downloading and upgrading. Plus, it's not like MS gets any cash up front for IE (as opposed to Office). But an anti-IE chess move or not, Apple would do well to encourage other browser developers who do develop according to strict html standards, and who don't try and junk Sun's Java for an older, inferior version, and who don't try and avoid QuickTime and MP3 merely to foist another proprietory 'standard' on the world. I think we've just figured it out: Microsoft is now Apple. Not the Apple of 2002, but the Apple of the 1980s. Remember how everything was proprietory back then? AppleTalk, EtherTalk, ABD and so on? Whereas Apple is about 'open, open, open'. 802.11b. IEEE-1394. USB. IDE. And Open-Source browsers. Like Mozilla.
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