The screenshot above is Microsofts view of Interoperability. To Redmond interoperability means we have the right of the Seigneur – the Lord of the Market. In effect, “Macht bilde Rechts”, Might has Rights, the right to pick and choose when to adhere to standards and when not to. So we choose not to allow Mozilla Firefox and the Opera browser users to access Office Live.
Now reverse this.
Could Google refuse to let IE browser users access GMail ? Could IBM cutoff the IE browser in its Sametime or any other browser based product ? Could Oracle make IE workable in only a portion of Fusion ? Could a US Government website cut off access to a user in the midst of browsing because the browser was IE ?
Well dear readers, you and I have apparently accorded these market-mighty (aristocratic, royal??) powers to Redmond.
(c)JBSurveyer 2006