At least that’s the nonsense TIME magazine seems to be peddling these days:
Gates had been warning his top lieutenants that the Net could change everything about the way people used computers, perhaps even the fact that they needed an $89 copy of Windows to make their machines work.Right in every way with one glaring exception: had Gates followed his "lieutenants" (top, bottom, and in-between) advice, Microsoft would have gotten involved in the Internet and Web much sooner than they did. In fact, if anyone at Microsoft warned anyone about the potential of the Net to change everything, it was not Bill.
Most Netizens know this; the question is, why is TIME trying to rewrite history?
No wonder this country’s in so much trouble.
A "virtue" is the expression of a value. If your fundamental values include the joy of creation, the exuberance of exploration, the pride of productivity, then the last thing you will want to do is postpone gratification.
Microsoft makes more money from the interest on its $7 billion of cash than Netscape's total annual revenues.Moreover, the folks at Netscape recognize the daunting challenge posed by Microsoft’s marketing channels:
Internet folk will desert an accepted standard only if they are bullied, bribed or seduced into doing so. These enticements are, in their legal form, known as marketing, a business in which Microsoft’s boss, Bill Gates, is fearsome.While Netscape’s Navigator still retains roughly 85% of the market share, Microsoft has responded aggressively, giving Explorer away to all its users (Netscape gives Navigator away to only about half its users, although as noted on a recent episode of C-NET, if you download the latest version every 90 days, you can essentially always use Navigator for free, albeit without technical support).
Meanwhile, as the Cyber Titans slug it out on the feature front, Netscape has "loaded Navigator with so many features that downloading has turned into an hour-long ordeal."
So, when are we going to see a "Navigator Lite" giveaway as a less costly inducement to invest in the full-featured version?
Sure, Grampa, tell us another.
Pundits, like parents, tend to exaggerate yesterday’s challenges, too:
Indeed, the depression of the 1890s may rank behind only the Great Depression of the 1930s in severity. Between 1894 and 1897, unemployment averaged 15 percent.Today is always better than yesterday, and the future’s so bright we have to wear sunglasses. But the American economies of the 1890s and 1990s are not really comparable. Before the turn of the century, you could still hitch up your wagon, move into the boonies and build yourself a homestead. A few month’s wages sufficed to pay for provisions; sweat equity paid for the rest. Today, no way.
Moreover, when "discouraged workers" and the underemployed are counted, the U.S. unemployment rate is almost as high as it was in the 1890s.
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