4 ms·

Microsoft man: "My job is to destroy IE6"

31 points by jaybol 16y ago

webdragon 16y ago
Microsoft obviously knows that the only way to kill IE6 is to say it is unsupported software and to stop releasing security updates for it. Until that happens, IT departments will continue to cling to it as part of the default install of Windows XP.
- johns 16y ago
  Except, that will never happen before the support lifecycle expires. It would be devastating to their enterprise sales. One reason you buy Microsoft at a large company is because they promise support for 10 years. If they renege on that with IE6, it would get too much exposure and enterprise IT departments would revolt and MS would start losing ground in one of their last strongholds.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    Well, isn't that ten year support timeline due for expiration in the next year or so? I'm going from memory here so please correct me if not.
    - superdavid 16y ago
      That would be for the initial release, but not for the service packs unfortunately. IE6 was still standard (and had some security enhancements) in XP SP2.
  - superdavid 16y ago
    Exactly. Microsoft's enterprise business is built on backwards compatibility, and they've already had a few breakages in recent years, with (most things in) Vista, and the recent announcement that Windows Mobile apps won't run in Windows Phone 7.
- acdha 16y ago
  If Microsoft were serious about this they'd have released a ChromeFrame-style compatibility mode when IE8 came out which would allow admins to use group policy[1] to load the old rendering engine for poorly supported (i.e. all) enterprise webapps and use the modern engine everywhere else. This is the same approach which will be necessary to address endemic security and reliability failures caused by bad architectural choices made for single-user desktops in the 90s. Since they finally shipped MED-V I suspect they'll probably use that approach and tell corporate customers that the only way to continue running IE6 is in an XP VM with some sort of on-demand launch scheme. 1. Setting an HTTP header would be easier but seems likely to allow phishers to opt-in to security holes and there's an argument that pushing the support cost off to app owners is better any way.
- wdewind 16y ago
  The problem is also compounded by the fact that a lot of companies (especially insurance and finance) have corporate intranets that are designed to run on IE6 exclusively. For these people not supporting IE6 is not an option, until the intranets themselves get rewritten.
kevinh 16y ago
Godspeed, Mr. Gavin, Godspeed.
mattmanser 16y ago
turning off support for IE6 in a bid to push customers towards later versions was "unacceptable" So not really then.
- superdavid 16y ago
  At least their own new apps (Sharepoint 2010, online versions of Office) won't run in IE6, so that's pushing people towards newer versions. The problem is, even if we get rid of IE6 today, IE7 will be the problem tomorrow, then IE8 the next day. It's not hard to foresee a time when we're all moaning about how terrible IE9 is (if we're not already).
  - thechangelog 16y ago
    Have you looked into IE 9? Everything I've seen leads me to believe that Microsoft has finally started listening. All that loss of market share has finally had the right effect.
    - superdavid 16y ago
      Even if IE9 catches up 100%, it will still be frozen in time at its point of release until IE10 is released several years later, where other browsers will be regularly releasing new versions every few weeks/months (with almost 90% take-up).
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      Except they've neglected to support XP, so anyone stuck on XP is stuck on IE8 unless they switch to an alternate browser. They say that in a year or so, whenever they get around to actually releasing IE9, then people won't be using XP as much because they'll have upgraded to their much better offerings. But that's what they said about IE6 too, and it's upgrades were free and didn't require complete re-installs. Basically, you're relying on the physical machine upgrade cycle to kill old IE browsers. Also: canvas support?
    - swombat 16y ago
      IE6 was everything IE9 is, 10 years ago. IE9 will be everything IE6 is, 10 years from now.
niyazpk 16y ago
Yet, despite such efforts, Microsoft has announced that it won't be bringing Internet Explorer 9 to Windows XP, leaving users of that operating system without access to the most modern browser.
- superdavid 16y ago
  You can see they're between a rock and a hard place - they don't want to annoy business customers by cutting off support for XP, but they don't want to spend significant resources bringing new software to an incredibly old platform.
BonoboBoner 16y ago
Cool, then we can start hating IE7! Remember the old days when IE 5.5 was the most hated browser? Why wont they just admit defeat and built IE around WebKit?
mjw 16y ago
IE7 too would be nice while you're at it :)

31 points by jaybol 16y ago

Microsoft obviously knows that the only way to kill IE6 is to say it is unsupported software and to stop releasing security updates for it. Until that happens, IT departments will continue to cling to it as part of the default install of Windows XP.

johns 16y ago
Except, that will never happen before the support lifecycle expires. It would be devastating to their enterprise sales. One reason you buy Microsoft at a large company is because they promise support for 10 years. If they renege on that with IE6, it would get too much exposure and enterprise IT departments would revolt and MS would start losing ground in one of their last strongholds.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Well, isn't that ten year support timeline due for expiration in the next year or so? I'm going from memory here so please correct me if not.
  - superdavid 16y ago
    That would be for the initial release, but not for the service packs unfortunately. IE6 was still standard (and had some security enhancements) in XP SP2.
- superdavid 16y ago
  Exactly. Microsoft's enterprise business is built on backwards compatibility, and they've already had a few breakages in recent years, with (most things in) Vista, and the recent announcement that Windows Mobile apps won't run in Windows Phone 7.
acdha 16y ago
If Microsoft were serious about this they'd have released a ChromeFrame-style compatibility mode when IE8 came out which would allow admins to use group policy[1] to load the old rendering engine for poorly supported (i.e. all) enterprise webapps and use the modern engine everywhere else. This is the same approach which will be necessary to address endemic security and reliability failures caused by bad architectural choices made for single-user desktops in the 90s. Since they finally shipped MED-V I suspect they'll probably use that approach and tell corporate customers that the only way to continue running IE6 is in an XP VM with some sort of on-demand launch scheme. 1. Setting an HTTP header would be easier but seems likely to allow phishers to opt-in to security holes and there's an argument that pushing the support cost off to app owners is better any way.
wdewind 16y ago
The problem is also compounded by the fact that a lot of companies (especially insurance and finance) have corporate intranets that are designed to run on IE6 exclusively. For these people not supporting IE6 is not an option, until the intranets themselves get rewritten.

kevinh 16y ago

Godspeed, Mr. Gavin, Godspeed.

mattmanser 16y ago

turning off support for IE6 in a bid to push customers towards later versions was "unacceptable" So not really then.

superdavid 16y ago
At least their own new apps (Sharepoint 2010, online versions of Office) won't run in IE6, so that's pushing people towards newer versions. The problem is, even if we get rid of IE6 today, IE7 will be the problem tomorrow, then IE8 the next day. It's not hard to foresee a time when we're all moaning about how terrible IE9 is (if we're not already).
- thechangelog 16y ago
  Have you looked into IE 9? Everything I've seen leads me to believe that Microsoft has finally started listening. All that loss of market share has finally had the right effect.
  - superdavid 16y ago
    Even if IE9 catches up 100%, it will still be frozen in time at its point of release until IE10 is released several years later, where other browsers will be regularly releasing new versions every few weeks/months (with almost 90% take-up).
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    Except they've neglected to support XP, so anyone stuck on XP is stuck on IE8 unless they switch to an alternate browser. They say that in a year or so, whenever they get around to actually releasing IE9, then people won't be using XP as much because they'll have upgraded to their much better offerings. But that's what they said about IE6 too, and it's upgrades were free and didn't require complete re-installs. Basically, you're relying on the physical machine upgrade cycle to kill old IE browsers. Also: canvas support?
  - swombat 16y ago
    IE6 was everything IE9 is, 10 years ago. IE9 will be everything IE6 is, 10 years from now.

niyazpk 16y ago

Yet, despite such efforts, Microsoft has announced that it won't be bringing Internet Explorer 9 to Windows XP, leaving users of that operating system without access to the most modern browser.

superdavid 16y ago
You can see they're between a rock and a hard place - they don't want to annoy business customers by cutting off support for XP, but they don't want to spend significant resources bringing new software to an incredibly old platform.

BonoboBoner 16y ago

Cool, then we can start hating IE7! Remember the old days when IE 5.5 was the most hated browser? Why wont they just admit defeat and built IE around WebKit?

mjw 16y ago

IE7 too would be nice while you're at it :)