Hein nailed it on Microsoft

In response to the Aug. 29 column by Gary Hein, "The makings of a new monopoly":

The perspective absolutely nailed Microsoft's plans. The best hope is that .Net works about as well as Windows 1.0. You probably don't remember, as it failed to even install on most systems. It was an extremely unimpressive productivity "dehancer."

Well, they tried again with Windows 2.0, and then Windows386, and then Windows 3.0, and finally in Windows 3.1 they started to gain a little traction. The GUI (graphical user interface) didn't dominate over DOS users until '95 was released--what, about 7 years later?

And now, another 7 years down the road, they've decided they should make the code secure and stable. Good luck.

.Net is far more ambitious than a mere desktop, and the mistakes they make will cost customers heavily in real dollars. I doubt most will have the stomach to play guinea pigs for Microsoft for more than a year or two. The desktop was a little different; people would look at Windows, poke around a bit, sigh and then return to working under DOS, with little or no loss. If you transit to a thin client model, there is no returning to desktop computing cheaply.

Microsoft is going to be a huge visible target while bringing up .Net. There are a lot of people who will start to feel very cornered as Microsoft embraces and extends the Internet. Every little flaw, and there will be lots in new code like this, will be exploited, and I fear, increasingly maliciously. That's what the business-as-war metaphor buys you in the long run--ruin and destruction. I'd suggest that business-as-ecosphere is a sufficiently bloody and vicious model for most people's taste.

Jim Flynn
Sunnyvale, Calif.