Network World, 01/04/99

TIM BERNERS-LEE DIRECTOR, WORLD WIDE WEB CONSORTIUM (W3C)

You know Tim Berners-Lee as the inventor of the World Wide Web, and you know just how much the Web has changed the enterprise network world.

But Berners-Lee is now the man who stands between you and Microsoft's domination of yet another realm - the Internet. Berners-Lee runs the Internet's foremost standards-making body, the W3C, an open forum of vendors and customers that wants to ensure the Web stays, well, open.

Openness is the most important attribute of the Web and its many associated technologies, and that openness is by no means guaranteed for the future. As the Internet becomes ever more commercialized, vendors push for proprietary advantages that could, ultimately, threaten the "access anything from anywhere" quality of the Web.

Case in point: Microsoft. An internal memo leaked in November shows Microsoft's concern about open source software products, such as Netscape Navigator, and says that one way to deal with the threat is to customize open protocols and seed the twisted specifications to the customer community.

BERNERS-LEE'S CHALLENGE: If the Web is to continue to grow as a forum for electronic commerce, intranets and basic human communications, it will be up to Berners-Lee and the W3C to ensure that it is based on real standards and to keep even big players like Microsoft toeing the standards line.

That's a tall order for anyone in 1999.

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