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Their new eServices site clearly states:
Not Compatible with Netscape Browsers.
No apology from them, just the bare facts.
Here is the URL
<snipped> tx
Is it courage or stupidity? On the one hand, they might lose some on-line business, but on the other hand, they are a monopoly at the trade show. A show only gets one decorating company. If you can't do it at their website, you can mail in the forms. or fax it. or call it in. Either way you HAVE to buy it from them.
Is it courage to finally take a stand? Or will the company suffer from their decision? I don't think they will suffer one dollar.
[edited by: txbakers at 3:46 am (utc) on June 18, 2002]
I would call it laziness and ignorance.
Stupidity.
Keep in mind that they don't need nor rely on their web site for business. It's just an added convenience for their customers. They have a monopoly in the trade show business, so they are not going to lose any business by not accepting Netscape.
A parallel argument could be made for credit cards. If a business doesn't accept Discover, what happens? Either you use a different card or you don't buy it. 95% of the people have another card. You might lose the 5%, but that's still not bad odds.
I will vote for courage.
Not Compatible with Netscape 4.x Browsers.
Then I would have voted for Courage!
But, since it said...
Not Compatible with Netscape Browsers.
I would have to vote for Ignorance! That's a pretty tough word but the new versions of Netscape should not present a problem to most designers. 4.x is the problem!
I'll call them tomorrow and see if I can talk to one of their web geeks to find out why they made that decision.
My vote is for incompetence.
Monopoly or no, they are creating a lovely niche market for someone who thinks enough about the customer to design the site for both markets.
They are discriminating against non-IE browsers! That's borderline crazy. The only reason I could give for it being this way is that it would be more cost efficient in some way to them.
The (probably) third rate designer has given them a yarn about not supporting it and they've bought it hook line and sinker.
The designer should be ashamed.
[big]STUPIDITY![/big]
Nick ;)
I recently designed a site to interface with another on-line site (sort of a web services idea). The user on the other end was using Netscape and was having problems. He was very quick to dump it and download IE.
It's a form of tough love. Stop supporting the garbage and it will go away eventually (or get fixed).
The proposal probably had $X for cross-browser testing and functionality and when the proposal was reviewed someone said "let's just dump that -- we don't need to spend the money on that area." So, the moral of the story is...if you're a designer or developer don't separate out those costs or they'll probably be cut! Instead, put that horrid splash page animation with the flaming rotating logo as its own line item so the financial guy/gal has something to cut that doesn't damage the functionality of the site....
(Ugh, I think I've written a few too many proposals lately that have been attacked by bean counters...I'm really tired of justifying why QA is necessary to folks who don't even know what the acronym stands for or why the lack of it might be a problem.)
Nick
My opinion would be an inexperienced designer who has said "Oh no-one uses Netscape anymore"
Stupidity all the way
Dazz
