Subject: Re: MSN (was Prodigy Pricing) From: R Ballard Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 11:46:29 -0400 (EDT)
How the Web Was Won
Subject: Re: MSN (was Prodigy Pricing) From: R Ballard Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 11:46:29 -0400 (EDT)
In-Reply-To: <199504072118.RAA17422@pluto.njcc.com>
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On Fri, 7 Apr 1995, Nate Zelnick wrote:

> > Date:          Fri, 7 Apr 1995 16:06:18 -0400 (EDT)
> > From:          "Robert D. Seidman" 
> 
> 
> > Speaking of Windows...  That all the online services will be offering a 
> > browser is nice, but in the long run it won't matter.  After 5 months on 
> > the Microsoft Network beta, I was beginning to wonder what all the fuss 
> > over MS' entry into online services was about.  Then I saw the seamless 
> > integration of MS Bookshelf (sort of a light version, no video or animation),
> > into MSN.  Now I understand why everyone is so afraid of MS.  But I'll 
> > save that for this week's newsletter!
> > 
> Indeed, this is an awesome thing--I was just writing a piece for one 
> of the umpteenth newsletters I seem to be working on these days and 
> decided to see if it was as cool as it looked just playing with it.  
> So I loaded up MSN, launched Bookshelf and used it as my 

The question is, how many people are willing to shell out an extra 
$400/year (the first million get it for $50, the second million for $100, 
the rest pay $300-$400/copy) for client software.

How many vendors/servers are willing to shell out royalties to Microsoft 
for content, $2000+ for NT Server and NT Exchange?  Remember, this is 
just the software.  Many are balking at the $25,000 for an unlimited user 
licence for Netscape server.

> dictionary/thesaurus while writing.  Every time I wanted another 
> word, all I had to do was click on the taskbar and punch it into 
> bookshelf and--voila--there it was.  This was especially useful 
> because I find I'm doing most of my writing in WordPad--the 
> slightly less brain-dead update for the truly brain-dead Write in 
> Windows 3.x.  WordPad has no spellcheck or thesaurus.  When Encarta 
> comes up soon I think we're going to see a real killer app for high 
> school term papers.  Teachers should become intimate with Encarta 
> immediately to avoid the inevitable cut-and-paste late night 
> plagerism term paper solution.
> 
> MSN also introduced another way to navigate through the service 
> today that mimics the "explorer" directory tree structure.  Pretty 
> nifty stuff.  
> 
> Nate Zelnick                          natez@pluto.njcc.com
> Information & Interactive Services Report v. 609-397-8990
> Report on Electronic Commerce             f. 609-397-8993
> Multimedia Daily       URL http://pluto.njcc.com/~natez/
> "...and that's when I realized we're ALL in a SimCity game..."
> 

From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon Apr 10 15:30:59 1995
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