>Subject: NT Workstation 4.0: Bad News for Web Servers
>Sent: 7/18/96 7:45 PM
>Received: 7/18/96 8:22 PM
>From: Ellen Elias, elias@ora.com
>To: Thom Forbes, tforbes@tforbes.com
>
>To: Journalists & Analysts
>From: Ellen Elias, Software Publicist, O'Reilly & Associates
>
>Below you will read an alert written by Tim O'Reilly, President of
>O'Reilly & Associates. If you would like to speak with Tim or another
>O'Reilly executive about the issues raised in this alert, please
>contact me.
>
>Thank you,
>Ellen Elias
>elias@ora.com
>(707)829-0515 ext. 322
>
>You may have already heard that in Microsoft's upcoming NT Workstation
>4.0, functionality will be significantly reduced. If you want to run
>*any* Web server--O'Reilly's, Microsoft's, or others'--on NT, you'll
>have to buy NT Server for $999. The implications of Microsoft's
>actions are serious for the Web community, and I encourage you to help
>spread the word about it.
>
>First, the facts: NT Workstation 4.0 will limit the number of unique IP
>addresses which can contact a Web server to 10 or fewer in a 10-minute
>period. No previous version of NT Workstation has contained this
>limitation. Of course, this effectively eliminates NT Workstation as an
>option for Internet or Intranet Web server usage.
>
>Now, the implications: this development will choke off one of the most
>important new directions for the Web: its return to its roots as a
>groupware information sharing system for the desktop. Like email and
>the PC itself, Web publishing belongs on the desktop. With the higher
>price tag of NT Server ($999 vs. $290), users who have never before put
>up a web site will be extremely unlikely to do so.
>
>This move by Microsoft will hurt the efforts of Web developers,
>Intranet developers, and Internet service providers, a great many of
>whom have been happy to create sites on NT Workstation. Microsoft has
>been saying that IIS (the Web server they include with NT Server) is
>free, and quite clearly, this is now exposed as untrue. Developers will
>have to stick with the older NT Workstation operating system if they
>want to use any server other than IIS (noted for its security
>problems), or will have to upgrade and pay extra for the server of
>their choice.
>
>Chief WebSite developer Bob Denny says: "When I first started
>developing Web servers in 1994, nearly all Web serving was done on the
>Unix platform. Considering that companies such as O'Reilly &
>Associates, Netscape, and a half dozen more, pushed hard in the fight
>to legitimize NT vs. Unix as a Web server platform over the last 18
>months, Microsoft's actions are pretty extreme."
>
>I've sent email to Bill Gates to let him know of my personal concern
>about the impact of his plans on Web users and developers. I encourage
>anyone interested in maintaining the open systems nature of the Web to
>send email to Microsoft, post this news on their sites and in
>newsgroups, and write letters to editors, to put pressure on Microsoft
>to reverse their decision. They've reversed such decisions before, when
>people have expressed their opinions about an important issue such as
>this.
>
>Regards,
>Tim O=B9Reilly
>President
>O'Reilly & Associates
>