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 Friday, November 09, 2001
Vermeer.
11:13:07 PM 
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Heh Evan is smart, he got a Mac. Not going to make the same mistake Ray made. Ev wants to know what it means. I know. Hehee. If I get it right what do I win?
11:06:53 PM
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On the other hand Ray and Microsoft are right. I think Cydney Gillis nailed it in an article a week or so ago (no pointer, sorry it's really late and my eyes are very bleary). She said that XP feels like a browser. Heh, they're smart at MS, and they have a lot of money. So they hired good UI designers and said "Make the OS feel like the Web," and you can bet that over time it's going to be hard to tell when you're in the Web and when you're in the OS. The problem for MS is that they tried this before and it flopped miserably. Remember the HTML folders bullshit. Does anyone actually use it? This is a real Hail Mary for MS. Now I'm betting the same way as Ray and MS, but totally hedging. The next product is totally in the browser. You can leave it in the tray. No problemmo. But we're not finished. But first I get a vacation probably in December if I have my way. UserLand take note.
11:00:22 PM
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Now it could also be wishful thinking on Ray's part. I think they made a mistake by not building their whole user interface in HTML. It would have made people feel instantly comfortable. Why? Because we think the awful UI glitches in the browser are somehow normal. It hurts so good. It's familiar. Ray's approach, like Mozilla's, is slow-growth. They invent new unfamiliar buggy interfaces. Unfortunately most users will choose the devil they know every damned day.
10:55:43 PM
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Over on Wes's blog, and elsewhere they're saying that Groove's business model is the same one that Visio used. Also remember FrontPage. What was the name of the company? So when you hear Ray talking about the unnatural browser interface, you're reading some tea leaves. It's fair to assume at least that he thinks this is what makes him compatible with Microsoft. I've heard MS people say the same thing. In their hearts they want the browser to go away. They captured it so they could strangle it. Apple wanted the same thing, but they went the other way -- they tried to ignore it in hopes that it would just go away. MS is more pragmatic.
10:49:07 PM
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