There is a new trend in software - making it free. Linux, the Unix-style operating system is free to single users. Large companies pay for development when they buy site licences. Netscape Communicator is now also free. Not only is it free, but the source code is to be made Public Domain, which means that anyone can compile it for any platform. I am guessing that an Acorn port will be here within 6 months of the source code release (assuming Browse hasn't got all the functions by then). Why?
People don't like paying for things when they can get them free. Linux is used because it is free and is therefore hugely popular among techies. I know it isn't perfect, but it is getting there, and because the people who write it also use it, they make sure it works before release, or issue a bug fix as soon as it doesn't - the time to release a bug fix is measured in hours not months. This is bad news for some companies, most notably Microsoft. People won't mind paying for applications software - as it is much more complex than hardware and OS software, but the technical users now expect the OS to be free - in a couple of years, so will the general public.
But by then, it will be too late for some people. Microsoft make most of their money off their software because they write the operating system, so they have the full specs, not the public specs, and this gives them an advantage. When they no longer write the Operating System, their advantage is gone, and their market share will fall, as people won't pay for something which they can get free elsewhere. It is happening now - Linux and Caldera's DR-DOS (a version of DOS 7 which runs fast even on a 386) are all selling well to large corporations, and single users get it free. Caldera even do a web-browser for nothing - which runs in DOS.
But what about us Acorn users? We get the benefits in a similar way. No large companies use Acorns as the main platform - so don't expect as much. However, lots of schools do, so Navaho Software have written their Internet Suite aimed at places where there are networks with more than one machine that needs to have internet access. True, it may not be the best suite around, nor the most flexible - but is the cheapest. It's a free 1Mb download, so you can evaluate it and then, if you use it, buy your site licence.
That is the model. If Acorn offer Browse separately, just buy that, and then download and set up Navaho. We have a decent operating system sold by Acorn, and it is effectively free (we pay for the hardware). Little will change that, and that is a good thing.
Disagree? Then reply!