First, I apologize if you receive multiple copies of this email. I'm hoping enough Microsoft people see this so that the problem is fixed, it's an important area for future Web development, esp in regards to P2P apps, where the server and the client are often running on the same machine.
***Concise statement of the problem
When accessing a server on the local machine, MSIE/Mac doesn't yield enough time to allow the server to do its processing. The net result is a glacial pace, when it should be lightning fast. The addition of a single system call to the loop that's waiting for a response from the server would probably cure the problem.
This problem isn't present on MSIE/Win or Netscape/Mac, it only effects Mac MSIE users. Our only recourse for people who use our new "desktop website" software on the Mac will be to switch to Netscape, which doesn't have the problem. I'm not going to suggest that they switch to Windows, I'll let Microsoft do that. ;->
More discussion is here.
http://radiodiscuss.userland.com/stories/storyReader$4389
Dave
PS: I don't like the banging on pots and pans approach to getting attention of vendors. But Microsoft is not moving in browsers, esp on the Mac, and if this is what they respond to, so be it.