atmaspheric | endeavors

What do the following have in common?

1. New versions of IE/Mac are available, so long as you pay monthly for MSN
2. New versions of IE/Win will be available, so long as you pay for a new OS version

If you answered that what they have in common is that they’re tied into the OS, you’d be (a) Microsoft, and (b) wrong. What they both have in common is that they’re paid upgrades for IE, the previously-free browser.

Now, I don’t have a problem with MS charging for IE, on whatever platform. But they ought to quit the BS about how they’re not going to release IE 6/Mac “because browsers are too tied into the OS,” when they have released it—it’s just been renamed to be MSN/Mac, and it requires paying a monthly fee.

Why doesn’t MS just come clean about how now that they’ve completed their takeover of the browser market, they want to get back some of their investment?

[Backup Brain]