Plug-Ins No More In Internet Explorer?
Eolas was recently awarded US$521 million in a patent suit against Microsoft for its technology relating to browser plug-ins. While the details of the injunctive relief are yet to be hammered out, it looks as if Microsoft will be forced to remove plug-in support in future versions of IE, or perhaps even retroactively through Windows Update. Microsoft is currently appealing the ruling.
Flash, Real Audio/Video, Quicktime and the Java Virtual Machine are all affected. Only Windows Media Player would escape, because it could be built into IE. Microsoft is currently looking at several solutions, including popping up a box before plug-ins are launched (thereby avoiding the "seamless experience" section of the Eolas patent), paying a license fee for each future copy of IE that's distributed, or potentially launching external applications to play the file formats. Microsoft could even buy the company...
At this point, Microsoft is still considering its options, and according to several news stories, hasn't decided on a course of action yet. Michael Wallent, a general manager in Microsoft's Windows division who ran the IE team for versions 5.5 and 6 was quoted as saying:
"We believe we are going to be successful, but the wrong thing to do is to sit back and wait for the legal process to play out. There are technologies that are already used today (that aren't covered by the verdict) and all we are saying is, given the choice, use the technologies that are already available to you." (He's referring to DHTML.)
Posted by Tom on September 18, 2003
