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I got this email last night, from Marc Andreessen, marca@netscape.com:
Yup, I agree about "Natural Intelligence". I'm thrilled about what all the Java licensees are doing, and hope that they're all very successful. At this point what needs to happen is broad market acceptance of Java; as that happens, Netscape will do fine.
BTW, Microsoft is not a Java licensee yet; they've only signed a nonbinding letter of intent. Wait to see if they actually sign a license. Lord knows they'd still prefer to find a way to not have to do it.
In the same email session, the following arrived from Erik Hornfeldt, erik.hornfeldt@mailbox.swipnet.se:
For what it is worth, I asked Ben Slivka, bens@microsoft.com, about their plans for their browser regarding frames and Java and he said that they would do frames during first quarter this year. On Java he recommended that I go for Visual Basic and OLE controls instead.
Gives you a hint about their plans and what Blackbird is, basically that they have done to Visual Basic what Sun did to C++ with Java.
It would be great to hear from someone at Microsoft.
Dave Winer
PS: Thanks Marc for showing Microsoft the way to get back into the Macintosh software world.