The question I have is how much of a market is there for IE outside of the
Windows and Mac platforms?
I don't think Sun are going to begin shipping Solaris with IE4 preinstalled,
SCO may but that's only because MS have an equity stake in SCO. The majority
of proprietary Unix sales are in the high end of the market, selling
enterprise class server solutions or turbocharged workstations to
developers. Both of these segments are tiny compared to the sheer volume of
the PC desktop massmarket.
I really cant see the point of porting IE to Unix, most Unix heads simply
wont use it (due to the fact that it may suck, or simply because it's from
Microsoft), we all know Microsoft's tendency for inelegant
engineering.(Communicator ain't that pretty under the hood either though) I
suppose that they may port a version to Linux, just to show a presence on
the platform. I cant see many vendors bundling it. I have difficulty
thinking of one that either isn't suing them or screaming about "The OS as a
commodity."
Lets hope they spend more time in the future being distracted by such silly
ideas. It might allow someone to sneak up on them and finally break their
hammerlock on the PC desktop.
Mark.
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