While Microsoft has dropped hints that the Internet Explorer brand is going away, the software maker has now confirmed that it will use a new name for its upcoming browser successor, codenamed Project Spartan. Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft’s marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. “We’re now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10,” said Capossela. “We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing.”
The only sensible move. The Internet Explorer name is tainted far, far beyond repair.
Does giving something a new name really do much for people? I knew it went this way, Netscape -> Mozilla -> Firefox. Same base code. We’re all still going to make jokes like “Click on IE, I mean Spartan, whatever that is, hahaha”.
Microsoft needs go Disney on this and “let it go” and start doing what Apple and Google did and start with a better base. Its all about that base.
Famous corporate renames – you decide if a name means anything:
Old ….. New
————————————–
Marafuku Company ….. Nintendo
Datsun ….. Nissan
Anderson Consulting ….. Accenture
Philip Morris ….. Altria
BackRub ….. Google
Brad’s Drink ….. Pepsi-Cola
Cough, Cough.
Netscape, Mozilla and Firefox did not share the same codebase.
Netscape code died in version 4.
They did a major rewrite of both the engine and the User interface to create Mozilla.
Firefox redid the UI of Mozilla, while keeping the rendering engine.
And also this new browser from Microsoft, is a different code base from Internet explorer. Which is why they’ll still keep internet explorer around for “legacy” reasons.
No, it really isn’t a different code base. They have basically forked their existing code and removed everything that could be considered legacy (quirks mode, activex, etc).
They still use the same rendering engine and javascript engine but on a now much smaller codebase. That means more speed for most sites, easier bugfixing and updating (through the store, not the OS). It also means some legacy-sites will not run, so for that you can still install IE as an optional component. (Business will do that, consumers won’t)
HTML5-and-up in a minimalistic UI? Spartan
I suspect this will be a school book example of… same shit, new wrapping.
I hope they keep ‘Spartan.’
It’s already generated a ton of interest with that name – it’s probably the most interest a Microsoft browser has experienced since IE5, and there’s not even a preview build available yet.
Will it yell out “THIS IS SPARTA!” every time you open it?
I hope so. I’m sure somebody will release an extension (Since Spartan is supposed to have more Chrome- or Firefox-like extension support).
If not, I’ll conjure up a script that’ll play the sound and launch the browser, for my own amusement.
I think they should call it “.net”
Here is my list of suggested names that would all ensure Microsoft’s next browser that is included in Windows 10 is successful and high quality:
– Safari or maybe even Webkit
– Chrome
– Firefox
– Opera
Anything not on this list is guaranteed to be crap.
Edited 2015-03-17 18:27 UTC
Disagree. My biggest complaint with IE11 is the UI (and even that I don’t have a great problem with). The rendering engine appears to be just fine.
I also don’t want WebKit taking over the world any more than it already has.
Microsoft Bing Explorer?
Cortana Explorer?
Microsoft Browser Downloader
Bob.
IE is dead, long live IE!
For me, what’s tainted is their release cycle and deeply OS-integrated code.
Let me know when it’s not holding back the lower bound on the featureset I have to code to and forcing me to buy extra RAM for multiple parallel modern.ie VMs when I want to efficiently test as I develop.
Edited 2015-03-17 21:16 UTC
By that logic, shouldn’t they rename the whole company too? I doubt it would help them though
From my perspective, *any* web browser that has the name “Microsoft” mentioned in its “about” window or anywhere in its credits list is tainted far, far beyond repair.
Edited 2015-03-18 06:55 UTC
s/browser/product/g
Since windows are made of glass, let’s call it Glass since it allows people to look on the web.
if search engine == Bing
then browser = Bong