O’Mara: Well, I think about wearables, for example, where you have watches and glasses. McCarty Carino: When you say that browsers could take new and different forms, can you give us an example of what you’re thinking about? But the browser itself, the way we do that, may take a lot of different forms.
#Internet explorer browser software
But the online world is changing, the devices we use, the software we use, the platforms we use, and always going to need a road map to this enormous sea of online information. O’Mara: The browser as we think of it, you know, this portal that pops up on your screen and the way that you get online and move around the internet, I don’t think they’re going to go away. McCarty Carino: What do you think is next for browsers? Are they gonna stick around? And now, it’s actually a piece of business software, essentially. So that is a function of this marketplace emerging - from having something that initially was an idea of a noncommercial navigational tool for the newly commercial internet. O’Mara: Browsers, initially, in the early days of the web, were designed to have this universality, right? And what happens as the marketplace becomes more crowded, and the different browser makers find new ways to jazz up their product, they have features that make them not as universal. Was its legacy really built in the business world? And we heard from a number of people that they still have to use it for certain business applications that only run still in Internet Explorer. McCarty Carino: We did a little callout asking listeners to share their experiences about Internet Explorer, and if anyone still uses it. That antitrust suit, in fact, was the result of Netscape and its investors and other Silicon Valley allies furiously lobbying against Microsoft for this anti-competitive behavior - for this bundling. So Microsoft can do what Netscape and all other companies cannot: It can bundle its browser into Windows. But as soon as it starts focusing on it and devoting its considerable resources, talent and money to building a competitor browser, it very quickly becomes a major player. O’Mara: Well, Microsoft is coming, in internet time, a little late. Meghan McCarty Carino: So when did Microsoft come into the browser game with Internet Explorer? Why does Apple? Why does Google? Why do all these companies get into browsers? They are a way to get your dominance on the desktop itself.
But also, why are browsers important? Once you have a user using your browser, then they are often using your search engine, they are using your other software platforms and products, especially as things like email and other software starts getting delivered through the browser.
#Internet explorer browser windows
Margaret O’Mara: Andreessen famously says, “We’re going to reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers.” And I think that first shows the fierce competition that underlay the browser wars.