Re: Netscape the Big Win

[tcmay@sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 8:23 PM 7/20/95, Jon Lasser wrote:

>And from what I've heard about HotJava (not seen it yet, can't comment
>strongly) there needs another jump in PC power before it would be useful
>at the home level.  Part of why we were stuck with DOS for so long is
>that it was what got the job done when the revolution happened.  For that
>reason, I agree that HTML/Integrated browser solutions are what we're
>looking at, and at the same time don't have strong hopes for HotJava,
>though I would like to see it succeed.

Just to clarify, you mentioned "useful at the home level." I can't speak
for Ray, but I certainly didn't mean HotJava (or PowerObjects, or OpenDoc,
or Agents tools, etc.) would be used at "the home level."

Such tools would likely be used at the programming level.

As to HotJava itself, who knows? It's one of several tooks coming along.

The key is that folks--millions of them at last count--are voting with
their feet that they want the ball of wax that is "The Web" (Netscape or
Mosaic, HTML, HTTP, browsers, automated handling of images and sounds,
integrated Newsreaders and mailers, etc.).

They, the millions of users, demonstrably don't want to mess with Linux, or
FreeBSD, or PGPelm, or even simple, straight text PGP (that is, PGP not
integrated with mailers, just standalone). They want ease-of-use and a
semantically simple model of how things work. (This is why I like Lisp
Machines when I programmed them for Intel, and why I was an early adopter
of the Macintosh, and why Windows has been doing so well...and why Netscape
is doing spectacularly well.)

This is not an "OS War" I'm taking sides in, just simple truth about what
people are buying, using, clamoring for. It's important to our longer-range
goals to recognize these important trends, like them or not.

--Tim May

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