I saw the following excerpt from tthis week's edupage.
What implications does this have for Microsoft's willingness to embrace its
own standards for developing user-level applications? Will Microsoft
continue to try and separate itself from the crowd by taking advantage of
undocumented internal features which could possibly render its products
inaccessible through its own access APIs? What steps can Microsoft
document to assure the blind that is is still committed to making *ALL* of
its applications accessible for now and in the future?
Since the access technology which Microsoft is developing is, as far as I
can tell, tied to the Active X technology, what will this separation mean?
Greg Lowney once wrote me and explained that the Active X technology for
access was not the same as the Active X technology I've been reading about
in the popular press. Could someone explain the difference to me and, if
it is really different, why it wasn't given a different name? I wish I
could say I didn't feel nervous at the sight of this announcement, but I
do.
-Brian
[snipped from Edupage, October 3, 1996]
MICROSOFT GIVES AWAY ACTIVEX TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft has agreed to transfer control over its ActiveX file-linking
software to the Open Group, a Cambridge, Mass. industry group, which now
will be able to set the software's future design standards. The move
signals Microsoft's realization that giving control over the software to an
outside entity might encourage software vendors to use the ActiveX approach
to creating software building blocks that can be arranged into customized
programs and linked to Microsoft's desktop operating software. "Microsoft
wouldn't be doing this if it didn't think it was in its best interests,"
says the president of a software consulting firm. Meanwhile, Netscape,
Oracle and other software companies are backing a rival technology called
Corba, which has also been shaped by industry groups. (Wall Street Journal
2 Oct 96 B1)
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