Web Browser WEBDAV support

> In general, there hasn't been a major concern with preserving downlevel
> client interoperability given the rapid turnover of client software, and
> the small base of existing Web distributed authoring clients.

In our web consulting practice, we deal primarily with Fortune 500
clients.
Mostly large insurance companies, health care organizations and computer
manufacturers.  Believe it or not, Netscape 2.x series browsers is still
a
standard with some clients internally, who have deployed it on over
10,000+
workstations.

Considering that the highest demand for distributed authoring
environments
will probably come frome large, complex organizations such as this, I
don't feel it is a safe assumption that there is "rapid turnover of
client software."  (I'm sure the browser vendors will push for
continuous
turnover of browsers and will make claims that everyone is converting
over
rapidly, but I don't think this is the reality...  why have WEBDAV
technology take a year extra before installed bases can take advantage
of
it?)

I think it is in the spirit of web browser technology to make it
possible to
deploy the solution via the web browser, and without the need for
special
client applications.  This also preserves the ability of the Web to
provide
users the ability to perform their work from anywhere.

At the very least, WEBDAV should include recommendations to browser
vendors
that permits them to support the extended HTTP protocols via HTML forms
in
a meaningful manner.

Jon

Received on Thursday, 1 May 1997 21:37:37 UTC