Re: Suggestions please for what POP or IMAP servers to use

"David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com> writes:
> Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav <des@des.no> writes:
> > No.  At the time (1995), Microsoft had no clue about what the Internet
> > was and how important it would become.  That was the year they launched
> > their own dialup service modeled after AOL, and the year _The Road
> > Ahead_, in which Bill Gates's ghost writer predicted that MSN would
> > become the dominant computer network, was released (read the original,
> > not the later revised edition which papered over the worst blunders).
> > Microsoft expected to end up in control of client, network and content.
> > It wasn't until 1996 that they did an about-face and bet, if not the
> > farm, then at least a barn or two on the Internet.
> So you're saying that long before Microsoft saw any importance to the
> Internet, they felt that it was important to give away IE so they
> could extort money from companies like Verisign to get their keys
> included? If you don't see the Internet and ecommerce as important,
> why would you think anyone would pay millions of dollars to get their
> key in?

Internet Explorer didn't get SSL support until 2.0 in late 1995.  Even
then, it wasn't until 3.0 in late 1996 that people started using IE.  I
was a staff member at a large IT event in early 1996 where Microsoft
tried to hand out free IE 2.0 CDs; nobody wanted them.

> In any event, your argument is contradicted by the historical record,
> from US v. Microsoft:
>
> ""Certain statements of Microsoft executives proffered by plaintiffs
> indicate that the company recognized the impending danger. For
> example, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates stated that the Netscape/Java
> combination threatens to "commoditize" the operating system. See
> B. Gates 5/26/95 e-mail (PI Ex. 2). Following a 1997 meeting with
> Mr. Gates, Microsoft's Ben Slivka described Java as "the biggest
> threat to Microsoft" and wrote to Mr. Gates that "clearly the work the
> Java team is doing has hit a raw nerve with you." SJ Opp'n Ex. 60. And
> in an essay posted on Microsoft's Web site, Mr. Gates recognized the
> potential of Netscape's browser to "become a de facto platform for
> software development, ultimately replacing Windows as the mainstream
> set of software standards." States' PI Ex. 3. Other Microsoft
> executives recognized browsers as "alternative platform[s] to
> Windows," B. Silverberg Internet Platforms & Tools Div. Mtg. Agenda
> (emphasis in original) (PI Ex. 33), that might eventually "obsolete"
> Windows. B. Chase 4/4/97 e-mail (PI Ex. 15). One Vice President warned
> that "[t]he situation is threatening our operating systems and desktop
> applications share at a fundamental level," and declared: "Netscape
> pollution must be eradicated." J. Raikes 8/13/96 memo (PI Ex. 34).""

Java was little more than a toy in 1995, and Netscape did not support it
until Navigator 2.0 was released in March, 1996.  There was no way
Microsoft could consider "the Netscape / Java combination" a threat in
May 1995, because it simply did not exist.

DES
--=20
Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav - des@des.no
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