Bill Gates Is The Devil, Again
The WSJ this morning (Link for subscribers only) announced that Microsoft is not going to be making its Explorer browser for Apple anymore. Is it just me, or does Bill Gates strive daily towards the robber baron image? After squashing the competition (MS Explorer has 90% of the market) in the browser wars and reducing other computer software (and hardware) providers to babbling idiots, it is yanking the rug out from under its smallest market. Full disclosure: Yes, I am one of those wacky Apple users.
It was with great reluctance that I gave up on Netscape after it went off the deep end trying to keep up with Microsoft's never ending hide and seek game by trying to become Explorer, and failed badly. I've tried Opera (works great with Windows, sucks for Apple), I just deleted Mozzila's new build (with their penchant for public humiliation they should get a blog) because I'm not a programmer and it sucks; and after two or three outings with Safari, Apple's browser, I unceremoniously chucked the alias (short-cut for you windows users) into the trash (recycle) bin. There is no other viable browser for Mac.
I'm waiting to see how Ben and Jerry... I mean, Steve Jobs reacts to his share price taking the expected dump today. A bold move would be to go ahead and spin off Safari into a separate entity to compete head-to-head with Explorer. OS X is already running on a Unix platform, it would be easy to market to all the Red Hat and Irix users. Marketing to disaffected MS users might piss off old Bill, but why wait for the other shoe to drop? It's only a matter of time before the next screwing.
