Kettal

How to get silverlight client on Linux?

BryanF wrote:

Saying "they could do it if they really wanted to" without having any knowledge of the team structure, codebase, schedule or budget is simply ignorant. If you read the blog post, they seem open to bringing Premium to Firefox in a future release. As subsequent versions of IE become more standards compliant, the cost of delivering a consistent experience across browsers will shrink. It's OK to be unsatisfied, but trying to draw far out conclusions like that is just weak.

Perhaps you are right. But as an end user, I couldn't care how backwards their team structure or codebase is, I am just concerned that the end product underdelivers.

I find it unsatisfactory that a company with the market share and resources of Microsoft can use budget as an excuse to cut features while their competitors can pull it off at pennies to the dollar.

Just look at IE, they're still struggling after all these years to make it standards compliant, and meanwhile Opera pulled it off with negligible resources in an incredibly short time. I can't possibly understand how this is excusable.

I guess it appears I'm on a Microsoft bashing rant here, but the point I'm trying to make is that budget/time constraints are a lame excuse to neglect interoperability. Most especially when Hilf and the PR department are trying to put on the compassionate face.

staceyw wrote:

If the donut model is correct, then supporting FF only drives more people to Exchange.  There must be a resources issue (i.e. time/other more important issues).  I see it as not a pressing issue as if people really want web access, they can just open up IE.  Not a great solution, but at least gives user an ~easy workaround.

You are forgetting that IE is a Windows-only app. Bill Hilf likes to brag about interoperability, but talk is cheap.

mdragone wrote:

The OWA Light team recently wrote about this over at the EHLO blog.

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/09/13/428901.aspx

Their reasoning for not supporting Firefox in OWA Premium is at the bottom of the article.

And the answer in that article is a sugar-coated way of saying "we're not that concerned about interoperability. Other messaging servers, developed on a much smaller budget, made rich AJAX clients that work with Firefox perfectly, and they didn't break the bank. Scalix is one example.

staceyw wrote:



Kettal wrote:I would really like to believe that Microsoft is concerned with interoperability. But at the same time, there is no adequate Exchange client that works on Linux, and none planned for 2007 either. The only reason that Exchange webmail access is so crippled when using Firefox is because Microsoft is intentionally inhibiting interoperability.

Do you have proof of this?

All of my inquiries to Microsoft staff on this matter have been unsatisfactory.  Firefox is perfectly capable of displaying Premium-mode Exchange Web Access, but the server software, for some reason, refuses to host it to anything but Internet Explorer.

I would really like to believe that Microsoft is concerned with interoperability. But at the same time, there is no adequate Exchange client that works on Linux, and none planned for 2007 either.

The only reason that Exchange webmail access is so crippled when using Firefox is because Microsoft is intentionally inhibiting interoperability.