At 10:01 28/11/2000 -0500, Welch, John C. wrote:
>On 11/28/00 8:04 AM, "Simon P. Lucy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<delenda est>
> >> Because 90% of the names on Mozilla bug reports are Netscape
> engineers. And
> >> I can right now point at 4 corporations that will be dropping Netscape
> >> because of LDAP, and 40 Colleges, and we are talking about well over a
> >> million users. Can Netscape afford this? No.
> >
> > Turn it upside down. AOL is predominantly a broadcast organisation, its
> > target market, as a core business, is the individual consumer. Their
> > market over the next 5-10 years will be measured in the billions, not for a
> > browser particularly but for whatever content distributed/broadcast via
> > whatever means. It could well be that the corporate email product does
> > still remain attractive to a business unit within AOL but yes AOL can
> > afford not to have to deal with corporate users.
>
>Then be honest about it. Issue a statement that says, "regardless of what
>Mozilla decides to do, AOL is not a business - oriented company, therefore,
>neither is Netscape. We will no longer target any customer base outside of
>the traditional AOL home market." *THAT* at least tells business users to
>deal with Mozilla exclusively, and could result in more cash and help. Right
>now, most of us are pinging between the two, reluctant to devote resources
>to either, because of vague maybes from Netscape. Had AOL done this when
>they bought Netscape, we could have planned for it, implemented
>replacements, and then evaluated Mozilla outside of AOLScape. But that
>didn't happen, and AOL is seeing the results.
Well I'm hardly in a position to make any statement, I was just pointing
out that AOL can do without corporate users. There may be a product in the
future that satisfies what you want, indications are that there will be.
> >
> >
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> I *want* NS6/Moz to rock. I want it to continue being the fastest IMAP
> >>>> client on the planet, and a really excellent business alternative for
> >>>> cross-platform web and messaging use.
> >>>>
> >>>> But from reading Bugzilla reports on the items that *really* count
> to much
> >>>> of the world, it is easy to see that those items just don't matter
> to AOL
> >>>> much, if at all. The other part is that it's been *three* years for
> this.
> >>>> Two if you drop the abortive attempt at upgrading the 4.X codebase.
> In two
> >>>> years, the people at Netscape and the OS community couldn't come up
> with a
> >>>> web browser/email client that is reasonably free of bugs?
> >>>
> >>> Yes they could have done that if it were a single line, single platform,
> >>> single OS implementation of rendering that attempted nothing more than
> >>> possible parity with 4.x.
> >>
> >> Oh crapola. In the same amount of time that AOL has been dinking
> around with
> >> Netscape, Microsoft managed to release 2 versions of Office on 2 different
> >> platforms, an entirely new email/calendar/scheduling app, 3 versions of a
> >> browser, and MS ain't THAT much bigger than AOL. In the same amount of
> time,
> >> Apple has damn near finished an OS and created new hardware. IBM also came
> >> out with more new stuff than you can shake a stick at. Don't expect anyone
> >> to buy the "It's too hard" statement.
> >
> > MS as a software developer is considerably larger than AOL's application
> > development. I didn't say it was too hard. I replied in the terms that
> > you set.
>
>Again, AOL doesn't wish to hire the people and spend the money on the
>resources. That's understandable. That's a business decision. I may disagree
>with it, but that's how these things go. But won't and can't are not the
>same. Mozilla *can't*, they don't have the resources yet. So it takes them
>longer in some ways.
Well they have and are hiring. Its still true that their size is smaller
than MS and you can't just buy development time.
> >> Great, the foundation is secure, but the implementation is buggy as hell,
> >> and since the IMPLEMENTATION is what people use, the foundation is not
> going
> >> to save it.
> >
> > The implementation, from your point of view should be an LDAP and IMAP
> > client (solely going on what you have said), that's a very small part of
> > the overall. You can be irritated that your own requirements aren't
> > fulfilled, but then perhaps you need a different product. It could well be
> > that products that meet that requirement are produced on top of the current
> > framework, but SHOUTING here certainly won't help.
>
>No...I haven't said that. I have said that the current IMAP implementation
>is way too slow. The lack of LDAP is a major problem. And right now, NS6/Moz
>is one of maybe *three* IMAP clients that DON'T have LDAP, and the only one
>from a major email player. Take a look at all the email reviews for NS6/Moz.
>That is a big stick they are getting hit with. And guess what...if the
>people that need it *don't* shout about it, I have serious doubts that
>either side will devote much time to it.
Not having LDAP is a major problem for you in Netscape, if you want to
shout anywhere, shout there, shouting here accomplishes nothing.
>> AOL bought Netscape, therefore AOL == Netscape just like IBM == Lotus.
> >> Netscape personnel are like 90% of Mozilla, so to all intents, Netscape ==
> >> Mozilla.
> >
> > Then you really don't understand acquisitions and mergers. Netscape no
> > longer exists, and if you listen to some didn't for at least a year before
> > the acquisition. The Netscape business unit have given their current
> > strategy for their corporate users, which is to stick with 4.x
> > product. That seems a reasonable thing to do at the moment.
> >
> > Oh and assertions such as Netscape = mozilla really won't help your case at
> > all.
>
>Sticking with 4.X is only reasonable if you don't need capabilities that it
>has. And the last set of features added to a *business* client were things
>like internet radio and fluff like that. That is not a sign that AOL wants
>that market.
>And yeah, I understand mergers, and regardless of who the parent corporation
>is, until Netscape as a subsidiary ceases to exist, then it's still there.
Well, having experienced being eaten by a larger corporate entity, all I
can say is that the subsidiary soon loses its individual culture and the
parent's core business becomes the emphasis.
>And as far as Netscape == Mozilla not helping my cause, blowing off your
>more (previously) loyal customer base isn't helping their cause either.
I can't help that, customer loyalty is a fickle thing at best and any
change hacks off some percentage the point is will a greater percentage be
gained in the change.
>
> > It isn't carrying Netscape at all. Up to now Netscape has enabled
> > mozilla.org to exist, I think there's now sufficient impetus and
> > non-Netscape involvement that were they to pull out now it could survive,
> > though stalled for a while.
>
>Then let's see some marketing from Netscape that doesn't say that. And right
>now, if all the Netscape engineers were told to drop Mozilla, it would be
>stalled for quite a while
I haven't seen anything from Netscape that does say that. Netscape never
was very good at identifying its product development track outside of
itself, its part of the Cathedral, tell others whereof you speak and soon
thy shalt be singing from their hymn sheet. I'm not really surprised that
they say in general 'if its not implemented yet, when its implemented in
mozilla it will be in Netscape' that doesn't mean they won't be doing the
developing its just a catchall.
> Being you're own Piper is sometimes the only way :-)
>Sometimes, but at this point, it's because I don't want to have to yank
>Communicator. It's completely self serving, and I hope to hell that Beonex
>makes Netscape pay through the frickin' nose for the LDAP code. It would
>serve NS right.
How much worse are your current installations of Communicator for not
having mozilla installed instead? Have they got worse overnight?
Not wishing to speak on Ben's behalf, but I believe the deal is that what
Beonex develops it contributes back to mozilla.org which can then be used
by everyone, including AOL.
Simon
