>From Webster July 22:

NT WORKSTATION 4.0 THREATENS WEB DEVELOPMENT
Guest Commentary by Tim O'Reilly, president O'Reilly & Assoc.

You may have already heard that in Microsoft's upcoming NT Workstation 4.0,
functionality will be significantly reduced. If you want to run *any* Web 
server--O'Reilly's, Microsoft's, or others' -- on NT, you'll have to buy 
NT Server for $999. The implications of Microsoft's actions are serious 
for the Web community, and I encourage you to help spread the word about it.

First, the facts: NT Workstation 4.0 will limit the number of unique IP
addresses which can contact a Web server to 10 or fewer in a 10-minute 
period. No previous version of NT Workstation has contained this 
limitation. Of course, this effectively eliminates NT Workstation as an 
option for Internet or Intranet Web server usage.

Now, the implications: this development will choke off one of the most
important new directions for the Web: its return to its roots as a 
groupware information sharing system for the desktop. Like email and the 
PC itself, Web publishing belongs on the desktop. With the higher price 
tag of NT Server ($999 vs. $290), users who have never before
put up a web site will be extremely unlikely to do so.

This move by Microsoft will hurt the efforts of Web developers, Intranet
developers, and Internet service providers, a great many of whom have 
been happy to create sites on NT Workstation. Microsoft has been saying 
that IIS (the Web server they include with NT Server) is free, and quite 
clearly, this is now exposed as untrue. Developers will have to stick 
with the older NT Workstation operating system if they want to use any 
server other than IIS (noted for its security problems), or will have to 
upgrade and pay extra for the server of their choice.