4 ms·

Nor does any MS browser for Windows XP, which still has > 50% of the Windows market share. It's very doublespeak of them: Yes we love HTML5, but we won't have

by cryptoz 16y ago

Nor does any MS browser for Windows XP, which still has > 50% of the Windows market share. It's very doublespeak of them: Yes we love HTML5, but we won't have any of it on our most popular OS or our new mobile phone ...wtf?

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- cryptoz 16y ago
  > Just because XP is their most popular OS doesn't mean that they need to keep supporting it. Ballmer said "we're embracing HTML5". If they want to embrace this technology then yes, they do need to bring it to their older, more popular OSs. Otherwise, they're just putting in a halfassed, minimal effort to it. All other HTML5 browsers run on Windows XP. Microsoft is the only company to produce an HTML5 browser that doesn't run on the world's most widely used OS, which happens to be made by them. That's absurd. Definitely not "embracing".
  - confuzatron 16y ago
    So there are multiple browsers that support HTML5 on XP. What's the problem again?
    - cryptoz 16y ago
      Since none of them are made by Microsoft, very few corporations will use them. This means that many web developers will still be developing for IE8 in the year 2020.
      - confuzatron 16y ago
        You have a point, but at the same time MS have no obligation to pander to these hyper-conservative corporations in a way that makes no business sense for them. Perhaps they should promote usage of Chrome on XP ;-) (http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/using-chrome-for-hotmail.html http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/using-chrome-for-hotmail.ht...)
trezor 16y ago
Again? XP is old. Seriously. Just get over it.
- cryptoz 16y ago
  If XP is old, then Microsoft should stop supporting it. They should stop selling downgrade licenses. But they don't. They still support it and they still sell it. In fact, they will keep selling it until 2020. That's 10 more years! Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179109/Microsoft_extends_Windows_XP_downgrade_rights_until_2020 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179109/Microsoft_ext... Now, can you seriously sit there and tell me it's reasonable for MS to sell an OS for ten more years (totaling about 20 years!) without releasing a single HTML5 capable browser for it? And then comment that they're "embracing" HTML5? Ridiculous.
contextfree 16y ago
Here's what I suspect their strategic angle on this is: I think when MSFT talks about HTML5, what they tend to mean by it is web applications with desktop-like rich UIs, fancy graphics (that, in particular, require hardware acceleration on powerful PCs to run smoothly), etc. They have decided it's in their interest to encourage the proliferation of such applications (expect to see a lot of tools to help this along - Microsoft have already released an Adobe Illustrator plug in to export to HTML <canvas> (http://visitmix.com/labs/ai2canvas/ http://visitmix.com/labs/ai2canvas/) and Blend 5 is strongly rumored to support SVG/<canvas> as a target platform) for two reasons: 1. They think it's a chance to differentiate their web properties, especially by moving them toward a rich-client model in which they already have experience. They tried to do that with Silverlight previously but didn't get enough acceptance from various quarters. They probably think it's an opportunity for their development tools business as well (in particular, <canvas> being a low level API leaves a lot of room for new frameworks on top of it). 2. If rich-UI, CPU/GPU-hungry HTML5 sites become common, people who haven't upgraded in a while will need newer browsers and PCs to view them correctly. Of course, Microsoft is hoping to encourage them to move to IE9 and therefore to Windows 7, but even if they go to another browser instead, if they're on older computers they'll still need to upgrade their PC for the sites to run well, regardless of what browser they're using, and by default that means moving to a W7/8/ ... machine. I think this is probably the most important consideration for them.
- contextfree 16y ago
  I'm actually curious what people think of my take on this. Does it make sense, am I crazy/deluded, or ... ?

by cryptoz 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

cryptoz 16y ago
> Just because XP is their most popular OS doesn't mean that they need to keep supporting it. Ballmer said "we're embracing HTML5". If they want to embrace this technology then yes, they do need to bring it to their older, more popular OSs. Otherwise, they're just putting in a halfassed, minimal effort to it. All other HTML5 browsers run on Windows XP. Microsoft is the only company to produce an HTML5 browser that doesn't run on the world's most widely used OS, which happens to be made by them. That's absurd. Definitely not "embracing".
- confuzatron 16y ago
  So there are multiple browsers that support HTML5 on XP. What's the problem again?
  - cryptoz 16y ago
    Since none of them are made by Microsoft, very few corporations will use them. This means that many web developers will still be developing for IE8 in the year 2020.
    - confuzatron 16y ago
      You have a point, but at the same time MS have no obligation to pander to these hyper-conservative corporations in a way that makes no business sense for them. Perhaps they should promote usage of Chrome on XP ;-) (http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/using-chrome-for-hotmail.html http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/using-chrome-for-hotmail.ht...)

trezor 16y ago

Again? XP is old. Seriously. Just get over it.

cryptoz 16y ago
If XP is old, then Microsoft should stop supporting it. They should stop selling downgrade licenses. But they don't. They still support it and they still sell it. In fact, they will keep selling it until 2020. That's 10 more years! Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179109/Microsoft_extends_Windows_XP_downgrade_rights_until_2020 http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179109/Microsoft_ext... Now, can you seriously sit there and tell me it's reasonable for MS to sell an OS for ten more years (totaling about 20 years!) without releasing a single HTML5 capable browser for it? And then comment that they're "embracing" HTML5? Ridiculous.

contextfree 16y ago

Here's what I suspect their strategic angle on this is: I think when MSFT talks about HTML5, what they tend to mean by it is web applications with desktop-like rich UIs, fancy graphics (that, in particular, require hardware acceleration on powerful PCs to run smoothly), etc. They have decided it's in their interest to encourage the proliferation of such applications (expect to see a lot of tools to help this along - Microsoft have already released an Adobe Illustrator plug in to export to HTML <canvas> (http://visitmix.com/labs/ai2canvas/ http://visitmix.com/labs/ai2canvas/) and Blend 5 is strongly rumored to support SVG/<canvas> as a target platform) for two reasons: 1. They think it's a chance to differentiate their web properties, especially by moving them toward a rich-client model in which they already have experience. They tried to do that with Silverlight previously but didn't get enough acceptance from various quarters. They probably think it's an opportunity for their development tools business as well (in particular, <canvas> being a low level API leaves a lot of room for new frameworks on top of it). 2. If rich-UI, CPU/GPU-hungry HTML5 sites become common, people who haven't upgraded in a while will need newer browsers and PCs to view them correctly. Of course, Microsoft is hoping to encourage them to move to IE9 and therefore to Windows 7, but even if they go to another browser instead, if they're on older computers they'll still need to upgrade their PC for the sites to run well, regardless of what browser they're using, and by default that means moving to a W7/8/ ... machine. I think this is probably the most important consideration for them.

contextfree 16y ago
I'm actually curious what people think of my take on this. Does it make sense, am I crazy/deluded, or ... ?