More Surfers Ditch Internet Explorer

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&e=5&u=/pcworld/118451

The highlight is this quote from a Microsoft spokesperson:

"...critical factors such as Web site compatibility, application compatibility, and enterprise management and support are just better with Internet Explorer."

i suppose he knows what he's talking about ... (i don't have a clue :( )

The highlight is this quote from a Microsoft spokesperson:

"...critical factors such as Web site compatibility, application compatibility, and enterprise management and support are just better with Internet Explorer."


What a n00b. He's talking out his @$$ :D .

firefow 1.0 is out too :) "and so it begins..." :D

in my opinon...IEvil is the worst thing Micro$hot ever made......

i thought i was poor at english, i had extra lessons, and was always taught if you use the word better or other comparision words you have to use something to compare it to.

Its like saying oranges are better

Better than what? a proper statement would be " Oranges are better than bananas for turning into juice."


just a little point i would pick up on.
scroots

well in my comparisin with hotmail (the free version), gmail is a lot better in terms of storage, service, advertising and speed....however it would be nice to see it released to everyone.

"...critical factors such as Web site compatibility ... are just better with Internet Explorer."
This is, of course, absolutely true. But it's a circular argument - it's only true because it's true.

Over the internet as a whole, site compatibility is better with IE, because most sites are made for IE and don't right work in anything else, whereas sites made for anything else don't work right in IE.

Microsoft, by advocating a non-compliant tag-soup style of coding, and ensuring that only that style of coding works in IE, and that it doesn't work anywhere else, have shored up their own hegemony.

We have to start feeding downlevel content to IE6. It's the only way I can think of to redress the balance; to show it up for the old and incapable technology that it is. IE6 is as old now as Netscape 4 was at the beginning of 2001 - a time when most of were just beginning to stop supporting it. I already feed downlevel content to Win/IE5 on my own site ... maybe I've not gone far enough.

We have to start feeding downlevel content to IE6. It's the only way I can think of to redress the balance; to show it up for the old and incapable technology that it is.
Word ;)
I've already started including downlevel interactivity for IE6. One example is the icons in a web app I've been working on -- Everybody else gets nice rollovers via the background-position/CSS-sprites method; IE gets static, but at least it doesn't flicker :o SO while the functionality remains the same, IE users don't get the visual flare of a CSS2 capable browser. They also get told what they're missing via message within conditional comments. (Hooray for conditional comments; easily my favourite piece of proprietry evil)

Firstly , I now use firefox almost exclusively on win32.

However my clients do not , we would all be well advised to think outside our community , because outside of our community many, even IT `proffessionals` have never heard of firefox or mozilla , they probably know of Netscape and a few older diehards still use it based on side they took in the original browser wars.

I try and install firefox on any computer that passes my way , but go back to the client in a month and mostly they will be back in IE ;)

IE was I think one of the best things they ever did , IE 4/5 broke netscape completely because it was a 100 times better than the competition.

There is no doubt in my mind that firefox is a better browser , but give IE multi-tab facilites and TO THE END USER its then as good as firefox ;)

The website-builders of the world can all pat themselves on the backs about how well thier code validates & how efficient the css positioning is , but just remember that the end user DOES NOT CARE ;)

......................

Also , why is everyone cheering googles gmail when they are doing something , that that if MS thought of it , would damn them deeper into hell ? , perhaps because we all trust google.... before the float I did too ;)

Oh totally ... I'm not seriously suggesting we do this to clients. But for own sites, where we know our audience to some extent, it may not be a problem.

However you're quite wrong when you say that users don't care about standards support. We all know how often lack of support in a browser is to blame for a site not appearing to work correctly. Well there you go - users do care when a site doesn't work, they just don't know why.

The mistake is to think of Firefox as the only alternative. Turn people onto Opera - it pisses all over firefox and still has some left for IE and Safari ;)


btw - I'm not cheering gmail. It may be visually impressive, and has some very nice behavioral touches. But it completely breaks the browser's navigation interface, because data requests with XMLHttpRequest don't log history events, nevermind that it relies entirely on javascript.

I think using XMLHttpRequest to avoid server trips is an abuse of the technology.

We all know how often lack of support in a browser is to blame for a site not appearing to work correctly

exactly , & if we could agree that in general IE is better at guessing how to display sloppy/invalid code ? , then to a user , that makes IE the better browser , they have no idea that the HTML/CSS behind the webpage is the reason why the page will not display properly in say firefox , they will blame firefox , and from thier perspective , why wouldn't they ?

ok dev/it sites can get away with sites that do not display as intented in IE , but most commercial sites can/will not.

I am not arguing against you BTW , I just worry that as a community , we do too much of the self-satisfied back slapping about the success of firefox ... how evil is BG & M$ etc and forget about the fact that to most of the population Internet Explorer is how you get on the web ... `and of course you need windows to do that` ;)

So if we think the battle is won now ... then we have lost already , we need to get smarter about how we educate , dunno the answer to that one of course :D

geeks aren't going to beat microsoft.

even if they/we did, the it community is such a divisive, partisan group that it'd be recreated instantly - ref. the comment above comparing opera to ff.

try explaining to a non-geek what wonderfulness they're missing out on by using i.e. instead of one of the alternatives. when/if they wake up, you'll get a confused and uninterest 'oh' - and there really isn't anything you can't do in ie that you can do in anything else (as a developer, not a surfer) - so the burden falls on us as vendors to satisfy the requirements of the customer (the end user). they want to buy viagra, get pictures of naked ladies, pay their phone bill and download pirated mp3s. they want the buttons to change colors and menus to slide. they don't care how we accomplish that, and by trying to make it easier on ourselves via standards facism and the ridiculousness of the w3c, we've shot ourselves in the foot. time to admit it was a bad idea, throw in the towel, and work about 60% less hours to get the same net result. just think how simple everything would be if we really did only have to write for ie. i'd love to be able to use those stupid built-in progids to make a div fade out, instead of having to write a page and half of browser-sniffing followed by not less than 5 (five!) cases or conditionals to address moz.opacity, khtml opacity, opacity, and alpha(opacity), or execCommand for user editable divs and save-to's instead of having to rely on server-side scripts. if i only had to worry about users on ie, i wouldn't be at work at 11:30pm.

i think we are to blame for the present awkwardness of the internet's adolescence, not MS, not IE, not the end-user.

You speak for yourself mate ;)

trying to make it easier on ourselves via standards facism and the ridiculousness of the w3c, we've shot ourselves in the foot

No, we haven't shot ourselves in the foot. Microsoft have shot us in the foot, and standards are the way out.

If I didn't have to think about IE at all ... likewise - I'd be home before supper.

You're making it out like it's "IE vs Everybody else" (which it is) and then saying "Everybody else" has to change. That's like taking a choir where all but one of the singers are in the right key, and telling them to match the guy singing in the wrong key.

IE has to change. It's not our fault or users' - it's Microsoft's fault, for using unfair practises to gain the hegemony of a piece of software, which they then refuse to update, even though its user base runs into billions and it's woefully out of date.

exactly , & if we could agree that in general IE is better at guessing how to display sloppy/invalid code ? , then to a user , that makes IE the better browser , they have no idea that the HTML/CSS behind the webpage is the reason why the page will not display properly in say firefox , they will blame firefox , and from thier perspective , why wouldn't they ?
Fair play - but that's the pernitiousness of the thing. IE is like nicotine - once you start using it, you have to keep on using it, because IE forces that situation. It's okay for a browser to understand bad code, but IE doesn't understand good code, and that's hegemony through format lock-in. It's just like RealPlayer, where you have to have their awful software just to play the files; except the files, in this case, are perversions of open formats.

I don't blame anyone except Microsoft. They created this situation - perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not. But now we can see it, and nobody - not even them - denies it's real, yet they won't do anything to help us escape from it.

They are bastards, and it's the users who really suffer - they suffer because IE is buggy and unsafe, but no other browser can guarantee to work for all their favourite [badly coded] sites.

And in the absence of Microsoft's help, we [web developers] can make it better - by building websites properly, and advocating standards and the browsers that support them, and bit by bit we'll make it easier for ordinary users to escape.

Very eloquently put Brothercake.

Basscyst

it's the users who really suffer

Google Search: microsoft users suffer fud (http://www.google.ca/search?q=users+suffer+microsoft+fud&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official)

5990 hits, even with the keyword 'fud' :D

Out of date, out of step: whatever, it works, it's fast, it mirrors (it is) the Shell--the metaphor. I struggle to comprehend the outrage directed at technology which seems advanced to a point beyond all necessity; nothing compells me to.

I struggle to comprehend the outrage directed at technology which seems advanced to a point beyond all necessity
As would I ... but the technology in question is not advanced beyond necessity. Every day (every day) of my working life I have problems with this outdated piece of technology not being up to the job. And it's been like this for 2 years or more.

If you haven't encountered any such problems, you're lucky mate :) If only :rolleyes:

Out of date, out of step: whatever, it works, it's fast, it mirrors (it is) the Shell--the metaphor. I struggle to comprehend the outrage directed at technology which seems advanced to a point beyond all necessity; nothing compells me to.

Firefox is as fast as (many claim faster than) internet explorer, it works better (IMO), and it doesn't need to tie itself into the shell to be a more-than-adequate web browser for casual surfers and developers alike.

"advanced" != "flooded with proprietary extensions"

Most of the 'advanced' technologies that should exist (some have been created that probably shouldn't) in some form that are associated with internet explorer have standardized complements that IE should at least provide minimal support for. Developer support for the proprietary client-side technologies (bad DOM model and other scripting issues not included) in IE is fairly minimal, and always will be until Microsoft owns all computers and computer networks in the world. Until there is universal acceptance of some standard for what these extensions are capable of, their use will be limited to browser-proprietary experiments rather than enriching users' experience on the internet. I'm not saying that browser extensions should be standardized, but rather that all technologies meant to be deployed on and for the internet that directly manipulate or enhance the functionality of a web browser in relation to the content it can display should adhere to some standard for all users so that browser and operating system are irrelevant to the functionality or display of a web page or whatever other forms of internet document arise in the future. Even the largest and most complicated CSS, HTML, or JavaScript should function and appear identical on all platforms.

It's not that Microsoft doesn't see things this way, it's just that their intent is for "all platforms" to mean Win/IE, and "internet standard" to mean whatever scripting, styling or other languages they create to make sure that the internet only works in their browser. They don't own 100% of anything yet, so their lack of standards support is simply stifling innovation and the maturing of client-side web development as a whole.

Why just pick on IE? Why does everyone assume that IE is the browser that must change? The reason we need cross-browser code is because pretty much all of the popular browsers perform similar functions in completely different ways.
This diversity of browsers was inevitable, and many things are easier in IE than in, say, Netscape. Then again, Netscape is far superior to IE in other areas.
Things will continue to be difficult for geeks everywhere until all of the major browsers find some common ground. I don't see that happening.

--Shen

I don't see that happening.
No offense mate, but if you don't see that happening then you're not looking very hard. The common ground of which you speak is web standards. And all of the major browser vendors (and many of the minor ones) except Microsoft, have made significant efforts towards standards support and interoperability, resulting in a new generation of browsing software.

You can defend a user's right|desire to use IE as much as you like - and fair play to that, misplaced though I think it is. But I don't see how you can possibly question the core tenet - IE is among the major things, if not the major thing, holding back the development of the semantic web right now.

Even the largest and most complicated CSS, HTML, or JavaScript should function and appear identical on all platforms.
From what I've read, standards are not so rigidly drafted, and by the way, it seems that Micosoft participated in standards development, as well as submitting its proprietary (a.k.a. evil) developments to the W3C... :p

i love microsoft... but i use firefox :p

has anyone seen that southpark with the underpants gnomes that say starbucks is only big because its the best.. well.. same thing.. sorta (i dunno its the only southpark ive seen :p)

i now write sites for firefox but make sure they work in IE, one big problem with IE is the fact that forms add a line break to the end of them, i fixed this in a site i made yesterday by setting the style to height:100%; of the form and the td it was in, and putting this td in a table in another td (it was a 1cell table inside the main table)

as to gmail, i hate the javascript.. its evil.. but then i now use mozilla's speedy thunderbird client for it now there is POP :) .. if ms made hotmail 1gig etc they would still be seen as evil for taking over the market.. every good thing they do somehow makes them more evil in the eyes of geeks *shrugs*

also, i read somewhere that google is now bigger than microsoft...seems strange considering its actaully such a small app :confused:

the burden falls on us as vendors to satisfy the requirements of the customer (the end user). they want to buy viagra, get pictures of naked ladies...

yes but when the user has been looking at said nudie pics and their dial-up internet starts calling up numbers on some caribbean island they tend to change their tune....

Every other week in my local paper there is an article about someone who has downloaded a dialler and got hit with a big phone bill. I remember a few weeks ago there was a woman who got a big bill and said (this comment will live with me for ever) "the phone company said we must have been looking at porn but i dont believe them - its only me, my husband and my 14 year old son that use the computer" :rolleyes:

So I thought, here's a chance for some free advertising and wrote a letter to the paper. They printed it last week (its shown below). I've tried to promote firefox and slag IE for security in fairly simple terms that the end user will understand. No doubt some bloke from M$ will pitch his tuppenceworth in next week but will keep you posted on that front...


Regarding the article in the edition published in last weeks
edition about another unfortunate victim to a premium
rate internet dialler scam.

The problem lies with the program you use to browse the Internet -
Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It may be nice and easy to use as it comes
bundled with the Windows operating system, but it contains so many security
holes and flaws that viruses and rogue programs can exploit as many readers
have testified over the last few months. The technical term for this kind of
program is a 'backdoor active-x plugin', because it sneaks in the back door
without the user noticing.

There is a very simple way to solve this problem. Stop using Internet
Explorer and change over to the free Internet Browser called Mozilla
Firefox. You can download this from www.mozilla.org, the file is just over
4MB, and it wont cost you a penny. Firefox does not contain active-x
components which (in layman's terms) means it is immune to the diallers and
viruses that would otherwise quietly and automatically install themselves
via Internet Explorer.

When I first heard about Firefox about 10 months ago I was very sceptical.
After installing the program the first few days were a bit strange until I
got used it, but ever since then I have had no pop-up windows, no premium
diallers, and no viruses infect my computer. Firefox also contains a nice
feature called "tabbed browsing" which I like very much.

I challenge anyone to switch over, and within a week you wont change back

their dial-up internet starts calling up numbers on some caribbean island they tend to change their tune....

Yeah, my grandma had that problem (only I think it was dialing somewhere in Asia) and I think she ended up only paying half of the phone bills through some bartering on her behalf by my mother. Doubt she got it from said nudie sites though, and she has decided to completely write the internet off as a result of the hassle.

On Microsoft's role in drafting standards -- helping to draft standards doesn't mean that they create software that supports them.

Ugh... after creating my first somewhat-CSS-heavy page and having IE throw up all over my transparent PNG and CSS menu, I'm almost ready to throw up myself... I mean, they could AT LEAST make the transparent part a generic colour like white, rather than aqua blue

No, we haven't shot ourselves in the foot. Microsoft have shot us in the foot, and standards are the way out.

If I didn't have to think about IE at all ... likewise - I'd be home before supper.

You're making it out like it's "IE vs Everybody else" (which it is) and then saying "Everybody else" has to change. That's like taking a choir where all but one of the singers are in the right key, and telling them to match the guy singing in the wrong key.
considering the reality of browser use and user, the analogy is more accurate as: a choir where all but one of the singers are in the wrong key, and telling them to match the lone guy singing in the right key. you say you've never seen a day go by without encountering some hassle due IE shoddy design; realistically and on the whole, i think if you were able to breakdown manhours spent or lost due to idiosyncratic browser behaviors, the vast majority would be because of the alternative browsers. IE is easy, forgiving, and most importantly universally expected and accepted. and that i think is the crux - like it or not, the common consensus is vastly in favor of all things MS and consequently IE - neither you nor i get to decide whose out of key or which browser is best - the consumer does, and has. the end users' of this media have voiced their decision time and again, loudly. we don't listen. neither insight nor experience nor dogmatic standards endorsement give our views any more validity than that of the folks that pay our salaries.

sweenster: i've done this for years, and i'd gladly relive every moment's work i lost to IE security flaws for a single week of not having to code for anything else. i run IE almost exclusively, with low/none security/privacy/advanced and haven't had a single problem in recent memory, and nothing major ever. i don't even run malware utilities or an antivirus anymore (although i'll admit to a healthy hosts file) - i have yet to see the legions of internet villians that so many developers would have us fear and take such pains to defend against. maybe i'm just lucky tho :)

IE may be easy and forgiving, but that is the reason why the web is full of so many crappy sites with shoddy code. If browsers had always paid as much attention to standards as Firefox and the like, the web would be a much better place. Pages would load faster, searches would be executed more efficiently and people with special needs would be able to use the internet more easily. It's IE that got us in to this mess; we need to do something to get out of it.

even MS created code doesn't work in IE... I have used some DHTML to insert a background music track - but the volume control in the page doesn't work, and none of the properties of the element actually work with javascript....


MS were not actually instrumental in creating the standard - just the w3c took HTML 3, compared it with the proprietary stuff from MS and Netscape, and came up with HTML 4.

The next step is XHTML - and IE has a problem with that... but unlike HTML where you can work round the issues by using non-standard HTML, XHTML is either standard or broke...
And in this case, XHTML will win out over IE - because XHTML is the future - it is more logical, more controllable, and eventually everyone will be scripting their sites with it.

If IE doesn't step up to the ocky and fit in with XHTML, more people are going to move away from it because there will be more "broken" sites.

just my tu'pence worth...

That wasn't my point, you know: MS was building bridges (maybe the matchbook of standards was scratched too abruptly...). ;)

one big problem with IE is the fact that forms add a line break to the end of them, i fixed this in a site i made yesterday by setting the style to height:100%; of the form and the td it was in, and putting this td in a table in another td (it was a 1cell table inside the main table)
<form style="display:inline;">:)

considering the reality of browser use and user, the analogy is more accurate as: a choir where all but one of the singers are in the wrong key, and telling them to match the lone guy singing in the right key. you say you've never seen a day go by without encountering some hassle due IE shoddy design; realistically and on the whole, i think if you were able to breakdown manhours spent or lost due to idiosyncratic browser behaviors, the vast majority would be because of the alternative browsers. IE is easy, forgiving, and most importantly universally expected and accepted. and that i think is the crux - like it or not, the common consensus is vastly in favor of all things MS and consequently IE - neither you nor i get to decide whose out of key or which browser is best - the consumer does, and has. the end users' of this media have voiced their decision time and again, loudly. we don't listen. neither insight nor experience nor dogmatic standards endorsement give our views any more validity than that of the folks that pay our salaries.

I'd disagree with your time estimate. In the old days, sure, I spent little time making my sites work for IE... however, now, I spend very little time working out the kinks between Opera, Firefox, and Safari -- and a significant amount of time making it fly in IE for PC (or for mac when I used to code for it). I'd beg to ask, are you developing advanced standards compatible sites? Your statement is not a statement echoed by advanced CSS/HTML/XHTML developers in the community.

sweenster: i've done this for years, and i'd gladly relive every moment's work i lost to IE security flaws for a single week of not having to code for anything else. i run IE almost exclusively, with low/none security/privacy/advanced and haven't had a single problem in recent memory, and nothing major ever. i don't even run malware utilities or an antivirus anymore (although i'll admit to a healthy hosts file) - i have yet to see the legions of internet villians that so many developers would have us fear and take such pains to defend against. maybe i'm just lucky tho :)

But you aren't a low-end user hanging out at home -- trying to figure out your first computer. Or even my parents for that matter, who've used them half of their adult life... most of us have been raised around them (in codingforums atleast), are intelligient enough to avoid Spam from African investors, and gif animations that say our computer is too slow.

Working in a professional environment, I used to receive a few calls a week from someone saying 'all these pop up windows won't go away' or a virus was found, and whatever else you can imagine. Internet smart is just as much street smart -- I imagine I could drop some of you off in New York, and you'd come back in pieces:) Others, not so -- the same goes for surfing the net, and your experience traveling through the junk to the quality. I have had these issues significantly lessened by swinging these PC users over to Firefox or Opera; because they will never be up to your level, and safe guarding them is still important.

I found this article while looking for something else and thought it was pretty interesting considering the topic. It's from 1997, concerning the miracle that was IE 4.0...

http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/html/97/13/index2a.html?tw=authoring

I found this article while looking for something else and thought it was pretty interesting considering the topic. It's from 1997, concerning the miracle that was IE 4.0...

http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/html/97/13/index2a.html?tw=authoring

I know -- and there's ones for IE mac, and IE 5... it's amazing how in our generation, what was once gold so few years ago is rust now, eh?

I think IE's fall into deprecation and technological inferiority has been intentional. The more deprecated IE6 becomes, the more of an upgrade IE7 will (presumably) be when it releases exclusively on longhorn. Then again, the fact that longhorn and its related technologies (ie avalon) have been eating up so much of microsoft's monetary and human resources could account for their lack of interest in upgrading IE which doesn't make them any money anyway. I think which side of that coin you're betting on depends upon your opinion of Microsoft in general.

I know -- and there's ones for IE mac, and IE 5... it's amazing how in our generation, what was once gold so few years ago is rust now, eh?Especially when you consider that, for all intensive purposes, this industry is about a decade old. I remember my first foray into web design, in college... 1994, applying a <center> tag for the first time and checking my work in Netscape Navigator 1.1. Or was it Communicator? Yowser.


I think IE's fall into deprecation and technological inferiority has been intentional. The more deprecated IE6 becomes, the more of an upgrade IE7 will (presumably) be when it releases exclusively on longhorn.
Also, MS' intention is to further develop Windows to be an all inclusive package, blending the lines between internet, applications, and hardware. So of course it makes sense for them to discontinue upgrades on a standalone IE and focus only on an incorporated web browser. I'm assuming that most of IE7's features will be tied into its relationship with Longhorn. Other software companies are also "blending the lines," but instead of building an OS to do so, they concentrate on web applications. It'll be interesting to see who's in the lead when Longhorn comes out.

I do find this interesting, though... Most people hate MS and IE because of the way MS "forces" their bundled software onto people when they use Windows. But Apple has done the same for years, and with hardware, too, and no one seems to hate those guys. Except for Andrew :D.

I do find this interesting, though... Most people hate MS and IE because of the way MS "forces" their bundled software onto people when they use Windows. But Apple has done the same for years, and with hardware, too, and no one seems to hate those guys. Except for Andrew :D.

Yes, but short of Appleworks, I've never had a complaint with Apple software:) They are, after all, a software company desguised as a hardware company.

I find apple software much like Adobe's software -- whenever I've complained of a needed feature, it was usually right around the corner, or atleast an attempt was made to curve the problem. MS, much like Quark, has not taken as much aggression to address these concerns.

In the end, if the monopoly switches, it'll be the same complaint. Then I'll be swinging over to Open Source for good, and all is well.

I do find this interesting, though... Most people hate MS and IE because of the way MS "forces" their bundled software onto people when they use Windows. But Apple has done the same for years, and with hardware, too, and no one seems to hate those guys. Except for Andrew :D.
Exactly ;)
[OT]
Apple do get 'punished' for their practices though -- when they took over Final Cut Pro as an internally developed app, Adobe pulled Premiere for mac because they weren't willing to compete with the hardware company on the software front. The same thing happened when Apple bought out Shake -- Discreet pulled Combustion. And the same thing happened again when Apple released Safari -- MS pulled IE/m.
Sure in those examples all the Apple versions are better programs, but they'd wanna be, because Apple's software development actually leads to less choices for their customers, not more.

Apple do get 'punished' for their practices though -- when they took over Final Cut Pro as an internally developed app, Adobe pulled Premiere for mac because they weren't willing to compete with the hardware company on the software front.It was also a question of them realising that Apple had the advantage in every way. They could compete on price, OS support, bundling, and had as much capable folks as Adobe in the area.The same thing happened when Apple bought out Shake -- Discreet pulled Combustion. And the same thing happened again when Apple released Safari -- MS pulled IE/m.Well, that move wasn't a surprise really - Microsoft had years ahead warned that they might chose to change to only providing the MSN browser. It might actually be that Apple chose to develop their own browser as to not be forced into going with something that didn't feel "Mac" (Mozilla, Opera) or was clearly inferior to the competition (iCab, OmniWeb at the time)) when Microsoft finally pulled the plug on them.Sure in those examples all the Apple versions are better programs, but they'd wanna be, because Apple's software development actually leads to less choices for their customers, not more.Don't forget iTunes vs. Audion (http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/). Currently, Apple can't let themselves be out-featured by Linux, Windows or maybe some new player like an open-source BeOS or old-and-tried Solaris. That means that they sometimes have to sacrifice third party developers to themselves provide features. Getting rid of the dependency on MetroWerks CodeWarrior as the only real quality development environment is another example - sooner or later CodeWarrior will fall out of favour by the application developers for the OS X platform in favour of either the IBM or the Apple development tools.