Microsoft’s browser seems to be scheduled for heavy changes. Not only does Windows 7 allow the user to switch off IE8, there are rumours that IE8 might be the end of Trident – rendering engine.
While Microsoft has fought to ensure that IE8 is more compatible with its past mistakes than with standards, a news that future versions of IE might move to a different rendering engine is conflicting. How will Microsoft be able to maintain its backward compatibility with the new engine, adopted or its own? I think the current developments have put Microsoft in a fix. It has to show improvements to compete in the new browser war, but it is also being pulled down by its old baggage.
Maybe Microsoft should build a XULRunner like technology to run IE6, so that its users can continue with its dependencies, and build its new browser for the modern world. Or maybe, just maybe, Microsoft adopts one of the existing browsers!
March 12th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Microsoft *has* to maintain backwards compatibility. Most of the world’s intranet web apps are built for IE, and MS’s most important customers are corporations and enterprises.
If you think about it, while Microsoft should be better at web standards, their primary obligation is to their shareholders first, and customers second. Following web standards is nice, but not an obligation.
And to give credit where credit is due, during it’s peak innovative period, IE has been more innovative than any other browser. More IE features have translated into web standards than any other browser’s. XML? XSL? AJAX? CSS? Accessibility? The list goes on. They may have done it all imperfectly, but you have to admit that they did a lot of cool stuff (not saying they were the first browser, but they were the first browser with those features with actual users).
Disclaimer: I don’t use IE. I’m usually running Firefox and Chrome.
March 15th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
[...] I think the quick-fix solutions will be more popular. I really wish that Microsoft starts separating its past versions from the modern standards compliant version. Otherwise, we are going from supporting 4 different versions of IE – IE8 as two browsers, there is [...]