Netscape integration

[Ralph Cohen]

On Tue, 29 Jun 1999 18:02:03 -0700, Steve Lamb wrote:

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>On Tue, 29 Jun 1999 17:46:12 -0700 (PDT), Bernhard E Krevet wrote:
>
>>I second this! There is a mechanism available in W95 but I sure would love
>>this in OS/2. The future is going to be in small, fast, specialized
>>applications that work together rather than the take-it-all-behemoth.
>
>    Gee, that was the past, too.  Called Unix.  

Unix?? To which of the many different proprietary and open versions of
the operating system are you referring?<g>

>Not that you'll ever convince
>many in this crowd that small applications working together will ever be
>better.  I think I was about the only one who wants B&I to remove the editor,
>PGP and spell checking portions of PMMail and have them relegated to external
>hooks (or hook to LGPL'd libraries) so that they can concentrate on just the
>MUA.

I absolutely agree that several well written small applications can
work together better than many integrated applications.  Heaven knows,
that as an OS/2 user I'm constantly mixing and matching OS/2, Windows
and DOS applications to "get the job done".  Nevertheless, I don't
think the economics of the consumer software industry makes the
component approach particularly attractive anymore.  At one time, when 
software was more of a cottage industry, programmers would concentrate
on making the best possible widget while maintaining compatibility with
the widest number of other peoples widgets.  Computer magazine reviews
placed significant importance on the ability of a program to
successfully and accurately interact with other programs.  If
Graph-in-a-Box didn't properly handle 1-2-3, Quattro and Excel files or
Pagemaker couldn't read WordPerfect, WordStar or Word files, then those
deficiencies were strongly noted in the review and the product's
ratings appropriately impacted.

Times have changed, and these days we have Microsoft using its
dominance in operating systems to dominate applications as well.  With
a single company now being able to exert overwhelming vertical control
over the software industry, standards have degenerated to a point where
the fact that this year's version of MS Word can't successfully
exchange files with last year's version, barely gets mention in a
review article and certainly doesn't impact the inevitable "MUST
UPGRADE" rating.  About the only interoperability standard remaining
for most mainstream software is whether or not it successfully operates
with whatever Microsoft's latest OS and applications standards dictate.


Of course, there are still alternative operating systems available
where making the best widget component still has value.  However, so
long as the Holy Grail of these operating systems is whether or not MS
has ported its Office applications to it, the long-term outlook doesn't
look particularly bright for widget makers seeking a wide audience.

As far as PMMail is concerned, I'm extremely happy to have a quality,
native integrated email package available for OS/2 and I hope the
authors continue to support and improve it.  A major advantage of the
integrated design is that there is only one place to turn to when there
are problems, instead of a bunch of different widget makers pointing
fingers at each other.  I, for one, would be more than happy to pay a
modest fee for in-version updates just to keep development continuing. 


Ralph Cohen

rpcohen@neurotron.com
PMMail/2 2.00.1500