The Underscore Archives

If memory serves me correctly, Flash 4 was on the Win98SE CD and
automatically installed as part of the operating system being setup.  Flash
7 is definitely including on all XP discs and implemented in the same way.

That's largely academic however.  People are used to plugins now, especially
with everyone having to upgrade their Flash installs en masse relatively
recently to take advantage of streaming video.  I think the argument against
take-up is easily squashed anyway with one single killer application, i.e.
Microsoft's equivalent of YouTube, whenever it appears.

How is "true" 3D relevant to web applications though, short of wooly
Minority Report-esque flights of fancy?  It hasn't worked on the desktop (I
seriously doubt it ever will in the conventional sense), so I'm glad they
didn't waste anyone's time with that and focussed on Mac support instead.
And Linux support will be along shortly, as the code is freely available for
people to tinker with.

I think people are right in assuming this is the eventual fruition of
Microsoft's online applications strategy, at long last.  And if it's as good
in practice as it sounds on paper, MS will do *very* well off the back of
it.

- Pete F.

_____________________________________________________________________

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't
mean it's useless."

- Thomas A. Edison
_____________________________________________________________________