I've heard comedians say that there are no new jokes, just the same ones delivered with new circumstances and characters. Sounds implausible, but it turns out life is a lot like comedy. New things rarely happen; we live in a state of almost perpetual déjà vu—very similar things have happened before. This theory can also be applied to technology. The same scenarios play out over and over again, and no one seems to notice.
This occurred to me recently when Microsoft announced that the next versions of Internet Explorer (7.0) and Windows (Longhorn) would integrate RSS (Really Simply Syndication) support. It was also the way Microsoft announced this, telling PC Magazine editors in one meeting that RSS and subscribing are "the next stage of evolution" of the Internet. It was evident that the Redmond software giant now believes that RSS is the next big thing. Well, RSS is big, but it's happening now, and it's being used throughout the Internet and on client desktops to push/pull relevant content.
As always—and this, too, is familiar—Microsoft's embrace of this relatively new technology is nearly as tight as a death grip and will, apparently, stop just short of that so it can subsume RSS inside its popular operating system and browser technology.
On the surface, this is good news for end users. Internet Explorer will, on its own, automatically discover RSS feeds; and Longhorn—and other apps running inside the new OS—will be able to build feed lists based on a new set of RSS extensions that Microsoft plans on posting to a common source receptacle known as Common Code. Company execs even added that their way of organizing feed lists would be better than existing methods that force you to maintain separate feeds in each reader.— Continue reading
Was this paranoia, or did something about Microsoft's RSS announcement seem oddly familiar? I searched my mind and then it hit me: DOS 6.0. Way back in 1992, when Microsoft announced and first demonstrated DOS 6.0 at PCMag's offices, company representatives were especially excited about the inclusion of integrated memory management, also known as MemMaker. Early systems had a 640K RAM (known as conventional memory) limit. So an entire industry grew around expanding that to 1MB, integrating things into what we like to call "upper memory". MemMaker took over that job, even rewriting autoexecbat and config.sys files to free up as much conventional memory as possible. DOS 6.0 included a host of other utilities, including antivirus, backup, and file transfer, but the Redmondonians were also very excited about the hard disk compression utility, Double Space. Don't laugh. Our hard drives were tiny back then, and being able to turn 200MB of storage into 400MB without buying another hard drive was a big deal.
The only problem with Microsoft's cheery development achievements was that there was already a thriving "third-party" utility business in, notably, the memory management and disk compression space. Memory managers included NetRoom, 386Max, QEMM, and QRAM. The compression leader was Stacker from Stac Electronics.
I remember wondering how these companies would react to Microsoft's entry into their market. With these utilities built into the OS, would there be any need for these third-party utilities? While compression company Stacker reacted as, perhaps, many of us expected and sued Microsoft—with whom it had previously had discussions about possibly including Stacker in the next edition of Windows—other competitors were not nearly so combative. When asked directly, utility suite and memory management utility company execs "welcomed" Microsoft into the space, saying that it would raise awareness about the whole class and that people would naturally try out MS's offerings but then turn to their full-featured solutions.
That's not exactly what happened. Within a few years of DOS 6 shipping, those utilities (and the companies that built them) had disappeared.
So what did RSS reader companies say in 2005 when asked about Microsoft's RSS plans?
"I think [Microsoft's announcement] is great," Greg Reinacker, NewsGator's founder, told PC Magazine. "It's companies like Microsoft that can, by building things into a browser, really build a market for RSS…. They're exposing it to the masses, which can only help companies like ours."
Wow, talk about déjà vu. Of course, what choice does Reinacker have? Admit that we've seen this before and then bid his customers a fond farewell? Let's face it, Microsoft's pattern is well known and pretty much unstoppable. Anyone remember 1995—Windows and the Internet?
Author: Lance Ulanoff
Previous article: 03 November 2006
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