1.	My Tuesday piece got a brief email exchange going with a few Microsoft people about the role of Microsoft Office vs Microsoft Internet Explorer. It's also getting me to rethink my position on the regulatory loop that Microsoft is in with the courts.
2.	I'm trying to parse my confusion. Did they snooker me into becoming an Office developer? I never wanted to do that. I like the web. But now the only browser with installed base and momentum and support from the owner (theoretically) is Microsoft's. This, to me, is like the fox guarding the hen house. As a web guy, this is very uncomfortable. The release of Office 2000 raises all my fears.
3.	To Microsoft, I'm not sure it's possible to answer all the questions. Office is a huge piece of software, and along comes the Internet and screws with everything that Office does. Office 2000 is remarkable for the breadth of its embrace of the web. But in doing so, it alters the web, and that's pretty sacred turf, for me and for many other people. So Microsoft is scared, and in expressing that, they evoke my fear! This is not a good place to be.
4.	My pitch to Microsoft, maybe not to the Office team, is to invest in the browser, independent of Office. As a developer who has made a substantial investment in MSIE, I don't like that all the good editing features came in Office. The browser is definitely a writing environment. I don't know if MS realizes this. Leaving the writing environment so barren in MSIE while building out so much in Office is a big problem for the web. That and the disappearance of Netscape.
5.	We're in an awkward mode now. If you want to get out of a place of fear you have to lead a little. This means improving MSIE without tying it to Word. It's pretty simple.
6.	If you doubt that the browser is a writing environment, try using Hotmail as your exclusive email interface for a week. It'll open your eyes. I think if you care about your users you'll generate a two-page feature and bug-fix list. Such improvements will allay much of the fear you hear in my piece, and would engage Microsoft in the web in a way that Microsoft knows how to engage -- feature requests and bugfixes. This is the culture, right??
7.	Stated another way, the key is to embrace the *users* of the web, not just the technology of the web.