Cautious Friends, Finally

It was a while back that I surfed across to www.anchordesk.com and noticed the signature campaign. This one was about getting Netscape and Microsoft to get their act together literally. Jesse Berst of the Berst Alert fame has been grumbling for quite some time about the incompatibilities in their respective browsers, and wanted the world to do something about it. Now he wants us to write to them to team up. Or at least let go of the users throats.

Sigh. This was the old campaigning spirit again rearing its saintly head. Whats the use? Net users hate to fill up forms and e-mail the big sharks. To put it simply, I backed away with my heart full of understanding and empathy, but nothing on paper well, e-mail.

 

Gross miscalculation. This was one instance where the surfers ganged up. Jesse Bersts campaign had 35,000 signatures in no time. Thats some number considering the notoriously lazy surfers. And while Jesse sat there gloating victoriously over how the Net brought Microsoft and Netscape to their combined knees, those two agreed to make their technologies compatible and keep the Net the way it was. The beauty of the Net is its accessibility and uniformity across platforms and browsers. Or else, like on the desktop, you would need a Web with information accessible for those who use a Windows PC or those who use w UNIX workstation. New products from Microsoft and Netscape has all but threatened to upset that.

It started with Dynamic HTML. Dynamic HTML, implemented by both the companies, were incompatible. Result? Web developers had either to throw in their lot with one of the two companies, or develop for both. Almost double the effort and expense, and something that will, in the future, tie you down to that company