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Standards, Schmandards (4/11/00)
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Surprise, surprise; a nonprofit organization called the Web Standards Project is miffed about the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. According to an Associated Press article, this organization feels that IE 5.5 (which is due to appear for Windows soon, despite the fact that we Mac users only just got version 5.0) "does not adequately support the software standards on which the World Wide Web was built." Pardon us while we pick our jaws up off the floor. Jeffrey Zeldman, the head of the group, says that Microsoft's browser still doesn't properly support HTML 4.0 or Cascading Style Sheets 1, and that "if Microsoft does not fully implement these standards, their users will not be able to properly use some sites on the Web."
Ha! Right. Apparently Mr. Zeldman's living in a perfect world, where monopoly abuses are the stuff of fairy tales and bedtime stories. The real-world translation follows: "If Microsoft does not fully implement these standards, webmasters will re-code their pages to work with IE, because after Microsoft's illegal bundling of IE with Windows, the number of people using it is too big to be ignored." What's really funny is that Microsoft could hardly care less; in reaction to Zeldman's comments, a Microsoft product manager said that "the company never intended to support all of the Internet standards approved by the World Wide Web Consortium." Like it or lump it.
Now here's where the obligatory Mac angle gets worked in: apparently it's only the Windows version of Internet Explorer that has these problems. According to Zeldman, the Mac version of IE has "complete and well-implemented standards... We look at the blueprints, and we don't see these standards in Microsoft's blueprints for IE for Windows, which is odd since they did a great job for the Mac." For once, we Mac users get the better Microsoft product. How crazy is that?
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SceneLink (2222)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/11/00 episode: April 11, 2000: Is desktop video now bigger than desktop publishing, or is Phil Schiller hitting the sauce a little hard? Meanwhile, the Web Standards Project takes issue with Microsoft's latest version of IE for Windows; the Mac version's just dandy, though. And in "Redmond Justice," the fur's a-flyin' following revelations that Microsoft paid one of George W. Bush's closest advisors to lobby on the company's behalf...
Other scenes from that episode: 2221: Spores, Molds, & Fungus (4/11/00) Okay, so Phil "Marketing Dude" Schiller didn't actually come right out and say that "print is dead," but he came darn close. According to a Macworld article, at the NAB press conference, he reportedly got on his soapbox and postulated that "desktop video is now bigger than desktop publishing."... 2223: Call It SweaterGate (4/11/00) Good gravy-- just when you thought the whole "Redmond Justice" thing couldn't possibly get any more dramatic, along comes the New York Times to inject a near-lethal dose of political intrigue into the storyline...
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