Re: Apple Release Safari Browser for Vista and XP

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/

CH

"Chad Harris" <vistaneedsmuchowork.net> wrote in message
news:ub6gY4TrHHA.192@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Here's one answer to the MSFT IE team's refusal to fix crashes that happen
> frequently with Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia):
>
> Use Safari on Vista:
>
> Safari 3 Public Beta "The World's Best Browser Now on Windows Too!
> Clinical Fact: Crashes a lot less than IE.
> http://www.apple.com/safari/
>
> Apple Releasing a Windows Browser
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/te...y/12apple.html
>
> June 12, 2007
> Apple Releasing a Windows Browser
> By JOHN MARKOFF
>
> SAN FRANCISCO, June 11 - Apple said Monday that it would make its Safari
> Web browser available for Windows-based PCs, opening a new front in its
> rivalry with Microsoft.
>
> The announcement came at the end of a presentation made by Steven P. Jobs,
> Apple's co-founder and chief executive, at the company's annual World Wide
> Developers Conference. It indicates that Apple is increasingly confident
> in its ability to compete against Microsoft's desktop computing monopoly.
>
> Shares of Apple dropped sharply after the announcement, falling $4.30, to
> $120.19. Several Wall Street analysts said the decline proved that Mr.
> Jobs was, after all, mortal. In recent years, Apple's chief executive has
> refined product announcements into an art form that leaves his audience
> cheering and then rushing to a store. Wall Street has come to hope that
> each new event will create a new iPod-style billion-dollar market.
>
> "This was pretty underwhelming," said Gene Munster, a financial analyst at
> Piper Jaffray. "He hit a double instead of a homer."
>
> With his usual showmanship, Mr. Jobs said that Safari would have twice the
> performance capability of Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer. He also
> expressed confidence that Apple would be able to increase its market share
> against the dominant software company, pointing to half a billion
> downloads of Apple's iTunes software, most of them by Windows users.
>
> A test version of the program was available Monday for downloading from
> Apple's Web site.
>
> In an interview after his presentation, Mr. Jobs said he had no concerns
> that the new competition might anger Microsoft or lead to retaliation,
> such as slowing the development of the version of Office for the
> Macintosh. "After all, we are developing for Windows," he said.
>
> Like many of Apple's strategic moves, the implication of an Apple browser
> for Windows was not immediately clear. It is likely that Mr. Jobs is now
> plotting a broader business strategy that will allow Apple to grow beyond
> its niche position in the computer market of about a 5 percent share.
>
> "Who knows? Maybe we can grow our Safari share in the future," Mr. Jobs
> said. "We're going to try."
>
> Apple's move is significant, industry executives said, because it
> indicates that despite the end of the browser wars of the late 1990s,
> Microsoft's continued ability to retain more than 80 percent market share
> is a continuing threat to its competitors. Mr. Jobs said that Safari's
> market share was currently about 5 percent and the share of Firefox, the
> open source browser, was about 15 percent. There has been a persistent
> fear that Microsoft would be able to create new standards that would force
> computer users to adopt its software to reach certain Web sites and
> Internet services.
>
> The broader appeal of the browser might have implications for Apple's
> iPhone. In his presentation, Mr. Jobs said that the company was
> encouraging Apple software developers to use modern Internet software
> standards to make applications compatible with Apple's iPhone, which will
> go on sale June 29. The announcement is likely to touch off a frenzy of
> activity because Mr. Jobs said that applications that are written to
> Internet standards like AJAX and designed to work with Web browsers would
> work from the first day the iPhone is available.
>
> "It will create a much more significant consumer platform for the iPhone,"
> said Mike McGuire, a research analyst at Gartner, an industry research
> firm in San Jose, Calif.
>
> By moving software development away from personal computers and cellular
> phones and toward the Internet, Apple is attempting to persuade its
> developers that they can achieve new economies of scale while permitting
> the computer and consumer electronics firm to build more secure devices
> and computers.
>
> "There is something very clever going on here with Apple releasing Safari
> for Windows," said Scott Love, president of Aquaminds Software, a
> Macintosh developer based in Palo Alto, Calif. "Don't ever underestimate
> S. J.'s motives." Some developers said they were disappointed that Apple
> would continue to restrict software development for the iPhone. However, a
> number of them said that they were intrigued by the company's new
> Windows-oriented Web browser strategy.
>
> Much of the rest of the presentation focused on showing 10 new features of
> the company's Leopard version of the OS X operating system. Mr. Jobs had
> shown many of the features, such as a new backup system called Time
> Machine and a new more powerful version of the Apple instant messaging
> system called iChat. On Monday, Mr. Jobs showed several refinements to the
> company's operating system appearance and graphical user interface.
>
> At previous events announcing the Leopard version of Apple's Mac OS X
> operating system, Mr. Jobs has hinted at important new features. However,
> Monday's event indicated that Leopard, which was originally supposed to be
> commercially available by now and then was delayed until October when the
> company shifted resources toward its iPhone, had no major surprises.
>
> Mr. Jobs teased the audience of about 5,000 software developers, saying
> the company would have multiple versions of Leopard, all priced at $129.
>
> "I'm sure most of you will want the Ultimate version," he said. The
> reference was a not-so-subtle jab at Microsoft, which offers Windows Vista
> at a variety of price points with different features. Apple, of course,
> will sell just one version.
>
> Electronic Arts and Id announced that they would begin releasing popular
> games for the Macintosh simultaneously with Windows versions.
>
>
>