Microsoft's online Office won't support Opera or Chrome
Wednesday, 12. August 2009, 13:13:23
It doesn't look like Microsoft is learning from its past mistakes.
Microsoft's "Office Web Apps" will only support IE, Firefox and Safari. This means that they are leaving out support for Opera and Chrome. This is quite strange considering the antitrust troubles Microsoft has gotten itself into by breaking antitrust laws.
Microsoft is also aiming for using Silverlight, yet another proprietary technology controlled by them.
One would think that Microsoft would be eager to show that they are no longer going to abuse their dominant position in one market to affect a different market, but even with antitrust authorities breathing down their necks, their priorities seem to be a bit off.
These priorities seem to be based on the browser situation in the United States. Europe is quite different, however. While Opera's global market share seems to be around 3%, it could be approaching 10% in Europe, which is more than Safari and Chrome combined if one is to believe these statistics.
Perhaps if other browser vendors weren't forced to spend so much time on compatibility issues due to IE's dominance, standards support could be taken to a new level. But designing for browsers rather than standards still seems to be the norm. Even though Microsoft in particular should know better.
Do we need another Opera Bork Edition (and a Chrome Bork Edition while we are at it)?
Microsoft's "Office Web Apps" will only support IE, Firefox and Safari. This means that they are leaving out support for Opera and Chrome. This is quite strange considering the antitrust troubles Microsoft has gotten itself into by breaking antitrust laws.
Microsoft is also aiming for using Silverlight, yet another proprietary technology controlled by them.
One would think that Microsoft would be eager to show that they are no longer going to abuse their dominant position in one market to affect a different market, but even with antitrust authorities breathing down their necks, their priorities seem to be a bit off.
These priorities seem to be based on the browser situation in the United States. Europe is quite different, however. While Opera's global market share seems to be around 3%, it could be approaching 10% in Europe, which is more than Safari and Chrome combined if one is to believe these statistics.
Perhaps if other browser vendors weren't forced to spend so much time on compatibility issues due to IE's dominance, standards support could be taken to a new level. But designing for browsers rather than standards still seems to be the norm. Even though Microsoft in particular should know better.
Do we need another Opera Bork Edition (and a Chrome Bork Edition while we are at it)?
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