Alternatives to the W3C

[Didier PH Martin]

Hi James,

James said:
Actually, I think the future is increasingly *in* the web browser.

I'm reminded of this everytime I use Microsoft Money. Local and network
information is pretty much seamlessly brought together and presented
essentially via a browser embedded in the Money application.

Didier replies:
I agree with you on this James, and to add on this. Here are some fuel for
thought

a) The Mozilla browser will be also available as an XPCOM and a DCOM
component. Furthermore it will have the same interface as the actual
Microsoft browser component. Thus, as you said, actually, the Microsoft
browser component can be used in applications. In a near future (I hope) we
will be able to do the same thing with the Mozilla component. Hence having
the choice of either the Mozilla or the Microsoft component browser. Both
have the same identical DCOM interface, so to use one or the other is simply
to change the object's ID in the host code.

b) In a near future, Adobe will release a SVG component. As probably a few
of us have already made the inference, an xml document could, with XSLT, be
transformed into HTML as well as into SVG. Or an HTML parser could convert
the HTML elements into SVG for display. So, that's an other component that
can be embedded in applications for rendition (and in fact get a lot more
than with HTML - believe me - I am playing with the alpha version of the
component since two months and I am still amazed of all it can do).

c) The PDF reader is also a component that can be embedded in an
application, with the right tool to convert XML into PDF, the document could
be displayed.

And so on and so forth....

bottom line, we have the choice of the rendition format, plenty of
components to choose from to embed in applications. The problem though? mind
share, money, mastering the distribution channels, resistance to changes,
etc...

Cheers
Didier PH Martin
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