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The Web is the Next Platform

The Web is the Next Platform

Tl;dr: Ben Slivka at Microsoft writes a memo for Bill Gates about the future of the internet which was largely ignored

Ben Slivka write about a long memo he wrote on the future of the internet. He shares the background here.

I started working full-time on what became Internet Explorer 1.0 in early October, 1994, grew the engineering team to 67 individuals by the time we shipped IE 3.0 in August, 1996, and got very little sleep (I worked 80-100 hours/week for 17 of the 22 months I led the IE team).

There were (naturally) a lot of discussions within Microsoft about the future of the Internet, and I found myself with a lot of opinions, so I wrote this 17 page memo to crystallize my thinking (and share it with a wider audience) in preparation for a Microsoft “Internet Offsite” held in early June, 1995.

In my executive Summary at the start of my memo, I wrote a very stark opening sentence —  to make sure there was no mistaking my point of view:

The Web (as I will loosely refer to the Internet and it’s evolving data formats and protocols) exists today as a collection of technologies that deliver some interesting solutions today, and will grow rapidly in the coming years into a full-fledged platform that will rival — and even surpass — Microsoft Windows.

As you might imagine, BillGSteveB, and others were not delighted that I was predicting the eventual decline of Windows a few months before we shipped Windows 95. 

I wrapped up my executive Summary as follows:

I will try to make and support the following key points in the rest of this memo:

  1. The Web is an application platform (complete with APIs, data formats, and protocols) that threatens Windows — many corporate developers and ISVs could develop and deliver their solutions more quickly, to a wider audience, with the Web than they can with Windows or MSN as it exists today.
  2. If Microsoft is to influence the Web, we must have broad, standards-based Web support in our products — we have to be the product supplier of choice for all key existing Web technologies — clients, servers, and publishing tools, at a minimum.
  3. Once we have market and mind share on the Web with our products, we can take a leadership role in expanding and shaping the Web.

The Web is the Next Platform

 

You can read the rest of the memo collection here.

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