[plug] More Microsoft Trial stuffups...

[Greg Mildenhall]

On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Bevan Broun wrote:
> on Wed, Feb 10, 1999 at 09:22:41PM +0800, Christian <christian at daisy.global.net.au> wrote:
> > Was the thing being demonstrated actually the computer dialing up and
> > connecting to the internet?
Absolutely nothing. There are no benefits whatsoever of browser-bundling
or browser-integration. Does anyone know of a single benefit to the
consumer in what Microsoft is doing, other than relieving them of the
terribly difficult and stressful choice of which browser to use?

<rant language=restrained>
Microsoft might call it "integration", but when you remove flexibility
from the system while simultaneously adding needless bulk and creating
complex interdependencies between kernel, libraries, user interface/shell
and a userspace app, for no apparent benefit, the rest of the software
industry and the computer science field just call it "Bad Software
Engineering Practice".
</rant>

What Microsoft wanted to show was that Win98 has better web-browsing 
performance than Win3.1.
The alert will notice that Win98 has a bundled browser, while Win3.1 does
not.
The pathologically stupid will actually believe that this is the cause of
the improvement.

-Greg