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Internet Explorer for UNIX

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ManWithNoName (talk | contribs) at 16:43, 14 April 2006 (slight rewording to introductory paragraph). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Internet Explorer for Unix
Developer(s)Microsoft
Operating systemSolaris, HP-UX
TypeWeb browser
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.microsoft.com/unix/ie/default.asp Edit this on Wikidata

Internet Explorer for UNIX is a proprietary and freely available graphical web browser that was produced by Microsoft for use in the X Window System on Solaris or HP-UX.

Development history

  • May 29, 1996: it was reported that Steven Guggenheimer, product manager for Internet Explorer (IE), confirmed "We're looking into a Unix-based IE. We're talking with partners. We need to find the best strategy -- whether it's ourselves or others". It was further reported that Steve Ballmer, then executive vice president of Microsoft, had shown an interest earlier in the month for a Microsoft browser to run on Unix as part of the strategy to wage the browser wars:

In pursuit of a larger share of the mammoth browser market, Microsoft has been dealing with PC and workstation makers to have its IE browser bundled with newly shipping hardware. Ballmer hinted, however, that not having a Unix browser was posing an obstacle to this OEM-based strategy to try and catch up with No. 1 browser maker Netscape Communications Corp., which holds some 85 percent of the worldwide browser market with its Navigator product line. "We might just have to get one of those," Ballmer said of a Unix-based browser.

  • June 3, 1996: Microsoft contracted with Bristol Technology under the the "Internet Explorer Source Code Porting Agreement" (IE Agreement) to develop a version of Bristol's porting application Wind/U to port IE for Windows to Unix. At this time Bristol also had a contract with Microsoft allowing it access to Windows source code from September 1994 to September 1997.
  • July 29, 1996: it was officially announced that Microsoft would develop a native version of IE for "Solaris and other popular variants of UNIX" to be available "by the end of 1996" which would have "equivalent functionality as that provided in Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0", thus "delivering on its commitment to provide full-featured Web browser support on all major operating system platforms" as well as "supporting and promoting open standards, including HTML, ActiveX and Java".
  • March, 1997: following a dispute which "arose between Microsoft and Bristol concerning each other’s performance of the 1996 IE Agreement" and likely also because of contract negotiations with Bristol to access Windows source code after September 1997 failing, Microsoft reversed course and decided to directly port the Windows version in-house using the MainWin XDE (eXtended Development Environment) application from Mainsoft, a competitor to Bristol Technology; Microsoft would later also use MainWin to port Windows Media Player and Outlook Express to Unix. Now well behind schedule, the 3.0 branch was apparently scrapped in favor of 4.0 (that was released for Windows half a year earlier), which used the new Trident rendering engine.
File:Ie4-unix.gif
Internet Explorer 4 for Solaris
  • January 27, 1998: it was reported that IE 4.0 for Solaris was due in March. Tod Nielsen, general manager of Microsoft's developer relations group, joked that "he wanted to launch Internet Explorer 4.0 for Unix at the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum in San Francisco" because of skepticism from those who suspected IE for Unix was vaporware. It was further reported that versions for "HP-UX, IBM AIX, and Irix" were planned (note that at the time MainWin XDE 3.0 was only available for the "Solaris Sparc 2.51 platform", but MainWin XDE 2.1 was "available on Solaris Sparc 2.51, Solaris Intel 5.5.1, SunOS 4.1.4, Irix 5.3, Irix 6.2, HP UX 10.2 and IBM AIX 4.1.5.")
  • March 4, 1998: IE 4.0 for Unix on Solaris released. Later that year a version for HP-UX was released.
  • March 5, 1998: Microsoft reached a settlement with Bristol which "provided mutual releases for any claims arising out of the IE Agreement".
  • 1999 IE 5.0 for Unix on Solaris and HP-UX released.
  • 2001 IE 5.0 for Unix Service Pack 1 released for Solaris and HP-UX.

Versions

There are nine versions officially listed by Microsoft:

  • 4.01 40-bit on Solaris
  • 4.01 40-bit on HP-UX
  • 4.01 128-bit on Solaris
  • 4.01 128-bit on HP-UX
  • 5.0 40-bit on Solaris
  • 5.0 40-bit on HP-UX
  • 5.0 128-bit on Solaris
  • 5.0 128-bit on HP-UX
  • 5.0 SP1 Beta 128-bit on Solaris

However, archived copies of Microsoft's website indicate that Service Pack 1 was released (presumably in finished form) for both Solaris and HP-UX. It is not known why Microsoft omitted references to these from its official list; Microsoft only hosted 128-bit encryption SP1 patches, so it is likely that there are three other versions as well:

  • 5.0 SP1 Beta 128-bit on HP-UX
  • 5.0 SP1 128-bit on Solaris
  • 5.0 SP1 128-bit on HP-UX

5.0 Readme highlights

Notable items from the IE for Unix 5.0 Readme:

  • "Internet Explorer 5 for UNIX supports most of the features and technologies of Internet Explorer for Windows, but also differs in some respects. For example, Internet Explorer for UNIX does not support downloadable ActiveX controls or browsing and organizing your local files and folders within the browser window. Other unsupported features include filters/transitions in CSS, the DHTML Editing component, and HTML Applications (HTAs). [...] Internet Explorer for UNIX offers some features not found on the Windows version as well, such as Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts and external program associations."
  • Microsoft had a newsgroup named "microsoft.public.inetexplorer.unix" on its public news server msnews.microsoft.com
  • "The User Agent String for Internet Explorer 5 is static except for the third field which depends on the Operating System and the processor you are using. Here are some common configurations and the user agent strings generated by Internet Explorer on these platforms:"
Sparc 5, Solaris 2.5.1       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4m; X11)
Any Ultra, Solaris 2.5.1 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u; X11)
Any Ultra, Solaris 2.6 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; SunOS 5.6 sun4u; X11)
HP 9000 C-180, HP-UX 10.20 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; HP-UX B.10.20 9000/780; X11)
HP 9000 K-250, HP-UX 10.20 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; HP-UX B.10.20 9000/802; X11)

Mysterious disappearance

The homepage for IE for Unix was abruptly removed from Microsoft's website in the third quarter of 2002 without explanation, replaced with the terse message: "We sincerely apologize, but Internet Explorer technologies for UNIX are no longer available for download." It was noted however that while the homepage had been removed, "the actual download page" remained up for a time.

The official reason given by Microsoft's PR firm was that "low customer demand for this download did not justify the resources required for continued development." This statement does not address the removal of the website and files however; note that some pages on microsoft.com are quite long-lived, such as the Windows 95 downloads page which is still active as of 2006 with binaries available for downloading, but does not list any software updates since 2000.

Thus some consider the stated reason to be a cover for the real reason; speculation regarding three events which occurred around this time may shed light on why IE for Unix was so abruptly and quietly dropped when its arrival only four years earlier was heralded by Microsoft with much fanfare:

  • Microsoft won the Browser Wars: In 2002, IE (Trident) had reached the peak of its popularity, representing approximately 95% of all web browsers; the vast majority of these were on PCs running Windows, not Unix. Thus the real need for IE to exist on any platform other than Windows had evaporated (contrary to Microsoft's claim in 1996 that it had a "commitment to provide full-featured Web browser support on all major operating system platforms"). It might be argued that the stated reason for its removal was consistent with this, but that does not explain why IE for Unix was dropped so differently from the way Internet Explorer for Mac was in 2003 (with security and performance patches available until the end of 2005 and downloads from Microsoft's website until the end of January 2006).
  • Linux began to be perceived as a real threat: In 2001, Ballmer asserted that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." Jim Lynch noted that in 2002, around the same time as IE for Unix vanished, "Microsoft mysteriously removed a wide variety of true type fonts from its site. Linux users had frequently downloaded those fonts in the past. Suse [...] even included a handy utility to automatically snag and install the fonts right from Microsoft's site." If one were to take the analogy further, if it was feared within Microsoft that the Unix IE binaries could be made to work in Linux and thus negate the need for purchasing Windows, one could 'excise the cancer' by simply removing the binaries from public servers.
  • Microsoft was sued by Sun over its Java Virtual Machine: In 2002 Sun began a legal process that would drag on for two years. Sun's income was derived from the production of Unix hardware and software; it could be that Microsoft's actions were a form of retribution against Unix to make it less appealing to potential buyers who wanted to use the de facto 'standard' web browser on their hardware.

See also

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