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The IE team hinted at shorter release cycles. And they have WebSockets and IndexedDB in the labs so we might see them in the next version.

I hope they take the Chrome release methodology and start pushing updates and fixes in the background.

I want that to happen so badly. I can't wait for the day when "people using an outdated version of IE" won't be a demographic we even need to worry about.

Won't happen, because it's anathema to enterprise.

As long as they allow enterprise to package it with that setting turned off, then there is no reason why they can't do that.

Name one enterprise that does not build an MSI package of any software they push out to the desktops.

Oh anti-Microsoft humor.

Haven't seen that before.

Oh anti-Microsoft humor.

Haven't seen that before. "

You give him to much credit, Thom. It wasn't even remotely humorous.

Oh anti-Microsoft humor.

Haven't seen that before. "

You give him to much credit, Thom. It wasn't even remotely humorous. [/q]

Wasn't being humorous, rather curious. Seriously... who cares about IE?

Most people who would care about these features have long left IE for alternatives and have seen the light.

I would guess that most people still using IE do so not because of a conscious decision to use it, but because they don't know any better.

Missing the point.

The most used browser in the World finally had decent standards support, decent interface and fast JS performance.

Troll somewhere else.

Hardly. IE9 has only just been released how can it suddenly be the most used browser in the world. Additionally, there are still a ton of people on xp who won't be using IE9. By the time XP is finally mostly dead people will be using IE10.

I don't think his statement was meant about a specific version of IE, but IE in general.

That's a fair statement, since most users of previous versions of IE will upgrade to 9 when they are finally willing/able, rather than jumping to another browser, I think. Having such fine-grained control over deployment in large environments is something that often trumps latest-and-greatest.

Thanks.

Not necessarily. Those running Vista or W7 will hopefully upgrade quickly, but there are a *lot* of Windows XP machines out there, which are incapable of running IE9.

Plus, corporate environments are *very* slow to do such things - most of our clients have only started to show interest in IE8 in the past year, and several are still running IE6. I doubt they'll be running IE9 for another 2-3 years minimum.

Internet Explorer in general is ... and most people that are using IE7/8 will upgrade either through upgrading their OS, or IE9 being a recommended Windows update for Vista and 7.



And most of those are either using IE6/7/8 and will either upgrade when there is a desktop refresh at corporate land or when their current machine gets old they will get a laptop with the next version of Windows and use whatever is the default browser ... because most people couldn't give two shits what their browser is.

Edited 2011-03-15 20:26 UTC

Most used?

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Not since 2008 apparently...

Edited 2011-03-16 10:06 UTC

Did you even read the page you linked to? Or did you just glance at the big numbers and give them your own meaning? Please go back to that page youand read the big words underneath the tables.

The site doesn't even pretend that these are real-world figures.

Yep, I did, and I'm quite familiar with how web statistics work. I also know from personal experience that most of the non-techy people I know now use Firefox, whereas a couple of years ago that wasn't the case. These are people who wouldn't be counted by the W3S servers, and seem to have switched from IE because they're concerned about internet safety more than before.

I'm not saying the statistics on W3S are valid for the non-geek world, but I don't think they're as far off as you seem to think, and in my techy, non-techy and professional circles, IE is far from the most common browser.

Did you even read the page you linked to? Or did you just glance at the big numbers and give them your own meaning? Please go back to that page youand read the big words underneath the tables.

The site doesn't even pretend that these are real-world figures. "

This one does:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-eu-monthly-201002-201102

In Europe, IE is not the most commonly used browser. It hasn't been since November 2010.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201002-201102

Worldwide, Chrome and Firefox together outstrip IE.

Those stats are for w3schools, which gets the large majority of its traffic from web developers. It does NOT represent the Internet at-large.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-eu-monthly-201002-201102

This site purports to represent the Internet at large in Europe.

Firefox 37.56%
IE 36.44%
Chrome 16.28%

IE is not the most used browser in Europe.

The most used browser in the World isn't IE9 and it wont be for years. :sadface:
If it takes IE10 to meet up with current browsers, and it wont appear on pre-XP, thats some percentage of ~30% of desktop computers, which are but a small % of Web-facing devices.

Pardon me for not being too excited.

Again missing the point, the lowest common denominator will soon be IE8 which is a decent browser in my opinion, IE7 is dropping off quick (especially on the website I look after).

I dunno how many times I have to say this, the vast majority of new laptops and desktops shipping with IE9 installed, the usage will pick up pretty quickly.

http://www.conceivablytech.com/6244/products/immediate-ie9-success-...



Firefox 4 is set to ship on March 22.

http://www.conceivablytech.com/6252/products/mozilla-to-ship-firefo...

There are 400 million Firefox users right now.

New versions of Firefox have a vastly higher adoption rate than IE.

Edited 2011-03-16 10:54 UTC

You really think that most people run windows in a virtual machine? Really? I mean really, really? As in you think that a majority of windows users run it inside a virtual machine on top of a different operating system? Like, you think the first thing Gradmpa Joe ,Suzie Q user, or Mr enterprise MSCE Carl Khaki do when they get a box is wipe the existing Windows Installation, install Ubuntu/Hackintosh/OpenBSD/GNU and then install the Windows on a virtual machine? Its so outlandishly, obviously not true you must have been making a joke. The only alternative is that you actually believe that was the case, which is just too scary to really even consider.

I use IE, because there is no need to add more bloatware to my system by installing other browsers. Ever since tab browsing, there hasn't been a single feature from Firefox, Chrome or Safari that I really had to have. I also use IE, because I don't care about not being considered cool for not bashing Microsoft everytime, everywhere.

As for XP, well Vista sucked (still does) but 7 doesn't. It's time to upgrade. I can understand a Vista user not wanting to upgrade to Win7, as it is basically paying Microsoft extra for fixing bugs Vista shouldn't have had in the first place. But staying on a nine year old OS?!?!? Why don't we go back to Windows 2000 or Windows 98 then?

Edited 2011-03-15 20:56 UTC

Actually, Windows 2000 was great, better than those bloated releases which Microsoft has kept introducing ever since

A lightweight OS that is light on security.

Shipping an OS in the year 2000 without a firewall was indefensible.

Xp wasn't that much better. It came with a firewall that was off by default. It was only on by default in SP2

With the right browser, in practise, it didn't matter a thing. As long as it wasn't IE. Maybe it could work if you had IE completely locked down.

Are firewalls really all that important on a consumer-grade OS ?

I've never seen the Windows firewall block anything but legit games... You know, this great user experience where it silently shows up in the background while you're experiencing various bugs in the foreground, and only find out what happened when you give up and close the game.

Edited 2011-03-16 06:06 UTC

Yawn, I still have Vista on an old computer and the only noticeable performance difference compared to Windows 7 is the boot time. All the bugs were fixed by SP1. There are plenty of benchmarks that show this but I guess you didn't bother to look at any.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5173392/windows-7-vs-vista-which-runs-crysis-f...

No, and what Universe do live in exactly? Windows is the defacto desktop/laptop operating system and will be for some years yet.



On modern hardware, 7 and Vista Service pack 2 is faster and more responsive than Windows XP, uses memory more effectively and doesn't lock up for 5 minutes because it doesn't know how to use your dual core processor properly.



Windows 7 uptake has been spectacular in the last year and a bit, XP is going to be retired where it can be in the Corporate world, IE9 will be a significant percentage by 2012.



IE8 and IE9 will still be dominate for a few years to come, until the mobile web usage goes beyond Desktop/Laptop use, I don't expect this to change.

Try harder at trolling.

So what? They sell operating systems, not browsers. XP is a needless security risk and I'm glad they are providing an incentive to upgrade, however small it may be.

Windows XP is dead. It just doesn't know it yet.

XP updates of any sort end this year in July if I recall correctly. I predict that by 2013 every XP machine in the world will be cracked and a member of a botnet.

Shortly after that the XP users will either replace their computer because it is too slow from all the CPU, RAM and bandwidth the malware is using or change operating systems.

In 2013 XP will be 12 years old!
That is almost a laugh. Would anybody use any other 12 years old OS? (except as a hobby, of course).

You're not counting the service packs as anything more than bugfixes then. That's not how most people seem to think about them.

The fact remains that a majority of windows users run XP. It is kind of odd to not give them access to the latest browser version when both mozilla and google seems to be able to pull it off.

IMO, it is basically still the same operating system. I have seen it "grow" and it doesn't seem to be fundamentally different than when it was first released.

Some Linux distros have also something similar to "service packs", especially the Enterprise ones.
I don't believe anybody uses a Linux distro that long.

That will of course depend on what you are looking at. One could argue that windows 7 isn't fundamentally different from Vista. Or that the latest Ubuntu/Mac OS X/FreeBsd isn't fundamentally different from the ones you used 10 years ago.

XP might be many years old, but it didn't stop changing the day it was first shipped.

SP2 had quite a few updates in it, I would count that as just as large an upgrade as the typical 6 month linux update or an OSX version bump. I agree that SP3 shouldn't count, though.

the last 3 business I've worked for still use XP, and it's 2011 already, ..not long to go to hit your 'laughable' 12yo OS !!

Much as I would expect and encourage friends of mine ('consumers') to go and switch already!

MS really should have extended business support, at least limited support and security fixes til ???2015/6 probably
IMVHO

Unless the Maya were right, of course

If I was to be the devil's advocate I'd say that shows what a solid product MS created in XP.

"Windows XP is dead. It just doesn't know it yet. XP updates of any sort end this year in July if I recall correctly."

Your information is faulty. In 2008 Microsoft committed to providing security patches "and other critical updates" for Windows XP until April, 2014.

"..XP users will either replace their computer...or change operating systems."

Once again your information is faulty. Microsoft has little choice but to support Windows XP for an extended period. Many of its largest business customers world wide have chosen not to upgrade to Windows 7. While Windows 7 has been somewhat better received than Vista, Windows XP continues to be the primary Microsoft desktop OS world wide. Companies universally have balked at Vista's and now Windows 7's deployment costs, resource requirements, and lack of ready compatibility with many older but still widely used business applications.

Microsoft has grudgingly accepted the fact that many of its customers world wide have opted to skip Vista and its somewhat improved sibling Windows 7 altogether while continuing to deploy XP. This holdout will no doubt last at least until Windows 8 becomes available and possibly longer.

In addition to actively supporting XP through 2014, Microsoft promotes a program that allows customers to downgrade the Vista and Windows 7 systems that come with newly purchased PC's to XP. This 'downgrade' option to Windows XP is available to all, and large numbers in the business sector still choose it rather than shoulder the costs involved with a wholesale move to Windows 7, which is seen as simply a somewhat improved version of Windows Vista - the single most despised MS/OS in many years.

I wondered where I went wrong. I went back and double-checked my source.

Support for XP service pack 2 ends this July. Service pack 3 is good until 2014, as you say.

Naturally, and in Hyper-V of course.

No it doesn't, most people don't know what a browser is and will use whatever is on their computer, which in a few months time will be IE9 ... since the browser is half decent they will not change.

Most large companies only support IE6 on Windows XP since their intranet apps will be tied to it, others will move to IE9 with their desktop refresh (like ours is doing).

Pretty much all computers come with Win 7 installed so expect IE9 uptake to be pretty good.

Windows XP was good back in it's day but tbh mainstream support is ending in 2014 .. why should they pour money into supporting an OS that is 10 years old?

Anyone that cares about HTML 5 support will already be using Chrome or Firefox, everyone else will use IE8 until they upgrade OS.



Until Firefox came out every other browser was complete shit. Opera was alright, Netscape/Mozilla was terrible. IE6 was the best of breed at the time.

They rested on their laurels because their was no competition, this is as much a fault of their competitors as them. Any company that commands a monopoly does this ... isn't limited to the software industry (see British Telecom).

As for other browser such as Chrome, Safari etc, I am already seeing the IE6 effect in the mobile space (and the lesser effect desktop space) with devs targeting Webkit and letting other browsers suffer in the name of progressive enhancement.

Edited 2011-03-15 20:12 UTC

Maybe I wasn't clear in the way I said it. I don't think Microsoft has an obligation to support IE 9 on XP. I'm not deamonizing them for not doing it. I'm simply suggesting that IE 9 growth will be stunted because it's not supported on XP and will give other browsers even more opportunity to gain market share.

I expect probably all computers with Vista and 7 on them to get IE 9 at some point.

**

That second part you lost me. I said competition is good and you more or less repeated my sentiment and then said my attitude is what caused the IE problem in the first place. Then you went off about how everybody is targeting webkit. As far as I'm aware IE has it's own render engine, Firefox has it's own, Chrome has it's own, Opera has it's own. Safari and Konquerer use Webkit. So I'm not real sure where you are actually going with that.

The problem I have is that people seem to forget 10 years ago ... IE6 was the only decent browser.

I went off about targeting webkit because it is becoming the new IE6, I see a lot of people targeting webkit specific extensions, especially on mobile devices. There is no decent competitor to webkit on smartphones and we will end up with sites just not working/looking odd on other devices because webkit has been targeted.

Edited 2011-03-15 20:50 UTC

The problem I have is that people seem to forget 10 years ago ... IE6 was the only decent browser.

I went off about targeting webkit because it is becoming the new IE6, I see a lot of people targeting webkit specific extensions, especially on mobile devices. There is no decent competitor to webkit on smartphones and we will end up with sites just not working/looking odd on other devices because webkit has been targeted. "

Clarification: Konqueror uses KHTML. Opera uses its own renderer, and Firefox and its derivatives use gecko. Chrome, Safari, iOS and Android use webkit.

Amongst that lot, gecko is the most prevalent, not webkit.

With the imminent release of Firefox 4, there will very soon be a version of Firefox for mobiles:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/mobile/

Enjoy.

comment removed.

Edited 2011-03-16 08:31 UTC

I think what most people forget is that Microsoft include IE with Windows for free when everybody else was charging for their software which effectively killed the browser market. In fairness standards didn't really mean much back then in the original browser war, but once Microsoft dominated the field it meant even less.

My problem with Microsoft is that when they owned the market they just stopped developing IE. By then websites were being designed around IE and not any real kind of web standards so I find it rather hard to say all other browsers sucked when websites were geared toward IE.

Flash forward to Firefox. They rekindled the browser war, but that didn't jump start redevelopment of IE. It wasn't till Firefox started gaining ground and taking points away from Microsoft that the 800-pound gorilla started working hard on IE 7 and 8 and now 9.

All that aside I don't care what browser people chose. Actually I would love to see the browser market split at least five ways with no one browser having a significant market share.

Nitpick ... in some markets Firefox is the most used browser.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-eu-monthly-201002-201102

Worldwide and in just about every individual market, Firefox has a much larger share than webkit browsers.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201002-201102

Given these facts, why wouldn't a developer target gecko (Firefox) first, and then enjoy the fact that other browsers such as Chrome and Safari useing webkit, or IE9 for that matter, should also work.

OK, IE9 might still be a little way off, but it won't be too bad.

After developing your website targetting Firefox, if you then get any complaints from Windows XP users, just tell them to install and run either Firefox, Chrome, Opera or Safari.

It is because Webkit is most prevelent on smart phones.

Mobile websites use something like WURFL/WALL to detect the devices capabilities (think User Agent Sniffing on steroids) or worse they use some sort of basic user agent sniffing (does the user agent contain the word iPhone) ... this can be client side or server side.

Ideally you need a combination of at least three technologies, WUFZL or equivalent to detect what the device can do, Server side logic to serve the correct content. Client side detection of its abilities i.e. video tag etc, geolocation via the browser ...

However It is easier for Devs to split this to Webkit/Smartphone and "everything else", this is the feedback I have got from working with various companies that specialise in Mobile dev.

Edited 2011-03-16 09:30 UTC

But how long will that take? XP is still the #1 operating system. What needs to happen is for a major site like youtube to require a modern browser. But no one wants to lose that much traffic so everyone will just keep using Flash for years.



That's BS, Opera was way better than IE6. The mistake they made was charging for the browser. The name was never that good either.

But nobody ever gives a shit about Opera ... I don't get any traffic from Opera ... in fact the only traffic I get from opera is me checking to make sure it works in Opera.

Also I get tired with nerds nitpicking ... I was pretty much right ... not 110% right ... but accurate enough ... It is tiresome.

Only ruined the life of crap web developers. Most who whine about IE6 and 7, usually don't understand how to do CSS and JS properly. Every good front end dev I know didn't have a problem.

Also IE7 is worse than 6 IMO, at least with IE6 the bugs are quite predicatable ... and one can expect them to be consitent. IE7 has very difficult oddities that aren't seen as easily.

IE6 made me a decent web dev, it made me appreciate how to be accurate, something which Firefox and other browsers lets you get away with, It also made me appreciate that you have to understand the browser and what it is doing.

Every browser has it quirks e.g. JS performance differs, dependant on how you write it.

Lets not forget that Firefox is no darling either, I have had all sorts of bugs to do with inline-block support, pages just not rendering properly because it doesn't feel like it, and AJAX deciding not to work until I killed the process and started again.

Chrome doesn't have a RSS reader and I absolutely hate their inspector tool.

Safari has a nice hanging bug at the moment where it randomly refuses to download JS files dependant on where the sun is in the sky as far as I can tell (which is causing me headaches on soon to be replaced legacy .NET 1.1 CMS).

All browsers have gotchas ... IE8 quite scarily is actually one of the more consistent browsers at the moment, and at the moment I tend to be using that more than firefox.

I am actually using Safari on Windows to debug my JS, rather than firefox/firebug because Firefox is just terrible in terms of stability.

Edited 2011-03-15 20:39 UTC

No they whine because it adds an unneeded workload. IE6 is a productivity killer, end of story.

That PNG transparency bug should have been fixed overnight but MS kept the damn thing frozen. I can understand keeping a conservative cycle for corps but any company that dependent on goofy rendering quirks should be forced to spend more on IT.

IE6 is also unstable and there are plenty of examples where it will bomb on clean code, especially if it involves AJAX. It's a garbage browser and that is a fact that is independent of web developer skill.

It is added workload indeed initially when learning the quirks, but at least the bugs are consistent. IE7 has more bugs, and more JS bugs (John Resig said that IE7 actually introduced JS bugs).

PNG support is a problem, and was my main bug bear, can easily be fixed with alpha image loader. Most layout problems are fixed by applying hasLayout ... all of these are documented in detail on Microsoft's website.

I have more problems with Safari on Macs these days than with IE6 ... luckily IE6 support won't be necessary our next website refresh. Unfortunately I will have to continue supporting macs, and we only have one test machine.

Edited 2011-03-16 08:37 UTC

I don't care what John Resig or John Doe says.

The typical web development company charges a surcharge for IE6 support, usually around 20%. That says a lot more than one person's opinion. It's clearly a burden when there is a standard surcharge involved.

Yes I am quite aware of annoying fixes to annoying problems like the png bug.

I can also list all sorts of IE6 AJAX bugs for which there is no fix. I have come across ASP AJAX bugs where even Microsoft said to drop IE6 or use a different control.



After Safari 5 I've had the fewest problems with Webkit browsers. FF on Mac was the problem child but nothing compared to IE6.

He is only one of the best web devs out there and has a javascript library which is pretty much ubiquitous.



It is because most web devs tend to be a bit shit. I cannot tell you how many senior web devs make websites in tables, spend a week binding a DataGird control or make elementary mistakes such as putting DIVS in a paragraph tab.

I only need an IE6 stylesheet for things that the browser is not capable of doing.



Good.



And I can list all the other annoying bugs in other browsers as well if you want ... IE7 has 180 well known rendering bugs and they are more of a pain in the arse than IE6.



Lucky you. I have problems with Safari ever day, I have one test machine that I don't have regular access to, and ain't great at using a mac.

I have had to tell our helpdesk to tell mac users to download firefox ... I have no other solution to the bug.

Edited 2011-03-17 10:24 UTC

No it is because it takes more time to make a website IE6 compatible and web devs don't like doing it. Working with pure HTML 4.01 is faster, end of story.



I've never seen anyone with the opinion that IE7 is worse to deal with than IE6. There are a bazillion blog posts on why IE6 should die. IE7 is definitely annoying compared to 8 but an improvement over 6, especially in the area of javascript.



Tell your boss to buy a mac mini off ebay.

I had an app once that IE6 died on. There was no visible error, but it would just stop downloading any new files. It would sit there and spin like it was trying, but would never succeed even if you pointed it to a new site. Only solution was to restart the browser.

I stuck some alert statements into the javascript to debug, and the issue went away, so it was clearly some kind of race condition in the browser.

IE7 fixed it, and several other weird javascript bugs i had noticed. So i'd strongly say IE7 was much better than IE6, no contest.

Which is why you are having so many problems with IE6. Using a XHTML 1.1 strict doctype will put it into "almost" standards mode.



Well you have now. know what problems IE6 has ... for me they aren't a big deal. IE7 causese me more problems due to its generally more Wholly behaviour.

I tend to use client side libraries such as jQuery (and before that prototype) so JS problems are rarity since others have already done a lot of the hardwork for me. Though I didn't work in Web dev before these were released ... so our experience may differ there.

I am not saying IE6 is a good browser ... far from it ... but developers really do complain a little bit too much for my liking about it ... when every browser has its problems.



We have 2 mac minis.

I work for a charity so the extra cost of another machine has to be justified ... there isn't one at the moment, so no new mac. It was hard enough getting an IE9 test machine environment, let alone another mac.

You're out of your goddamn mind.


I hate to break it to you but these people either weren't good or didn't need to write multi-browser apps.

But yeah, IE7 is no darling either. Ever see the one where resizing a resizable frame will cause the browser to hang re-rendering layout for 30 seconds? The best part was it happens *every other* resize. One day I won't have to support that either.

I seen all these problems, Like any good dev I learnt how to deal with them, and I learnt from past mistakes.

The websites I used to work on were heavy on their use of AJAX and JS, I got them to work cross platform ... with no hacks.

Funnily enough jQuery and Prototype devs seem to manage just fine as well.

Cross-browser *javascript* is a totally different animal with a much more limited set of frustrations. That can all be worked around in code. Trying to fix CSS issues *without* using javascript and keep it cross-browser, including IE6 support, is a nightmare.

I managed it fine, for two years while I was working making templates for Holiday websites.

The main problems you have are,

<fieldset> and <legend>, IE6 puts a margin of 7px when legend is displayed as block. Use IE6 stylesheet and assign a negative margin and position relative.

Hover in IE6 only works probably on anchor elements and it children.

Double margin bug on floated elements ... instead use a padding on the parent element if possible.

hasLayout bugs, assign width, height, or overflow property to fix.

I could go on ...

I only had an IE6 stylesheet for things the browser couldn't do e.g. alphaImageLoader.

The thing is I understood what the browser was doing, and I wrote my CSS with that understanding of how IE6 will try to render it.

Most of the information is on MSDN.

lucas, i can't tell if you're joking or trolling.

Not doing either.

No we're not. Unfortunately.

It's low enough to ignore for websites that target US and European visitors. You can thank China for keeping the global rate high.

[quote]gpu rendering is overrated for today's needs [/quote]

Chicken and egg. People don't need GPU rendering because nothing needs it, but nothing needs it because, so far, it hasn't been available.

Well, the egg has been laid and hatched, so lets hope it turns into a chicken.

Of course, there is a tangible, immediate benefit to GPU rendering. Pages that have a chunk of stuff that doesn't move when scrolling through a page is much, much smoother than other browsers. Wish I had an example on hand, though. I tend to avoid pages like that, for the previous performance issues.

Well we're talking games since video is obviously not a problem. I'm not convinced that HTML5 is the future of browser based games. I think a third party C++ 3D browser/native hybrid engine would be a lot more appealing to developers.



I really don't see a difference and have tried some multimedia heavy websites like nick.com. I'll try it on a lower spec'd computer later.

Thank you for telling us what OUR site is.

Very enlightening.

It such a piece of crap that it has been around for 10 years plus and not moving in some place for another couple of years if ever ...

It is crap compared to today's OSes but it was miles ahead of anything else except for Windows 2000 on its release.

Oh boo freaking hoo, they can install FF alongside IE.

Most those companies are just plain cheap and will only replace systems when they are completely unusable.

True. We are still using those old IBM laptops at work that were forged from raw iron and weigh about 50 lbs. You know, the ones that can double as medieval weapons.

I brought a Notebook in with me one time and it ran faster than the laptop...

I'ts sound business sense. If you have thousands of XP workstations that are already doing what they need just fine then there's no need to upgrade. Upgrade in this case: no business advantage, all huge cost.
But yeah, they'll just install FF or Chrome or something instead if they need a newer browser.

No, its more like misplaced focus - they seem to have plenty of money to send people to 'Tony Robins' like motivational speakers but they scream in horror at the idea of upgrading software. They seem to be always able to find money for a private jet, private helicopter and expensive meals/wine but scream in pain at the idea of upgrading hardware.

Most organisations failed to grasp the role of IT in business and decades later they still fail to grasp the role in which IT can play in their business - it is almost as though there they reluctantly accept having to have a computer but if given half a chance they'll run back to using type writers and filing cabinets. It really is amazing seeing the numbers of business who never take advantage of what they have because it is 'all too hard'.

Edited 2011-03-16 13:19 UTC

I wouldn't say that.

The typical business computer is running a p4 which runs hotter and slower than a modern dual core. They also don't power down as well.

A lot of those computers still have CRTs which are giant heaters.

Those energy costs add up especially in warmer areas.

Then on top of it there are productivity gains from faster equipment.

There have been lots of complaints about the various windows updates required failing, but i haven't heard of a BSOD before.

Thanks. I also found that pretty odd.

are you joking?

Apparently you forget that IE 4 and IE5 were the best browsers in the market for their day.

even IE 6 was the best against its peers until Firefox came around.

Don't forget KHTML. When MS dropped IE support on the Mac, Apple quickly found KHTML to be a worthy base upon which they could build Safari. That was an instant 5% overnight out of IE's share. Plus, that paved the way for WebKit-friendly websites such as Google Chrome.

Actually it was the other way around. MS had a 5 year agreement for IE to be the default Mac browser. When that agreement was due to expire, Apple was spinning up Safari to replace IE. MS walked away from IE after that. I don't personally know, but I'd suspect that MS would have continued with IE for Mac if Apple continued to ship it as default browser.

I remember talking with one MS employee who told me (of the decision to scrap IE for Mac) that "Safari is good enough..." I always found that funny, since the browser wars would have gone very differently if a vendor stopped because another vendor had a product that was "good enough."

I know it seems that way today, but my recollection was almost the exact opposite. IE was serviced by Windows Update; Mozilla Suite had no update mechanism and FireFox didn't get one till 1.5. Mozilla also didn't have security updates without feature updates (eg. a security bug in 1.5 was fixed in 1.6, etc.) So IE was always better patchable/more secure; Mozilla relied on its small market share. Stability has improved a lot in the non-MS browsers, but in the Mozilla Suite days IE certainly seemed more stable to me. And although IE was always quirky, it had a better renderer that supported a lot more standards/features than its peers at the time, which is one reason web developers targeted it.

Although the criticisms you mention are valid today, it's important to judge IE6 by its peers at the time.

I think the front page copy just hasn't been updated. If you actually click on the tables, it takes you to a more detailed view comparing against Chrome 9 beta and FireFox 4 beta 11. Still out of date and pretty embarrassing; you'd think they'd be less negligent given that this is an important release for them--nevermind that most of these types of charts tend to be rubbish.

Yah I know when you click it goes inside and shows deeper comparison. However at first place they should have not compared chrome version 6 against IE9... gives kind of bad impression, it gives me message that IE9 is better than chrome 6 and chrome 6 was where IE9 is today! and when i digg more I will endup finding Chrome 10 must be now way too better!

Lack of ad-blocking is a deal breaker for me.

put windows 7 on the laptop and it will work fine.

BTW... Vista being slow is all in the mind. I ran Vista until Win 7 was released and performance was perfectly fine.

Disagree, most enterprize blew off the Vista but are very much in the process of migrating to Win7. But with most all enterprize environments it doesn't happen overnight, but the plans are in the works. Just like the transition to move over to a Win 2008 environment. What your seeing is nothing more than imaging the "current" corporate standard but reality is they are moving. XP and 2000 - 2003 with XP workstations are EOL