6 ms·

This chart doesn't show the 5 year sabbatical that Microsoft decided to take between August 2001 and October 2006 (The amount of time between releases of IE6 an

by davej 16y ago

This chart doesn't show the 5 year sabbatical that Microsoft decided to take between August 2001 and October 2006 (The amount of time between releases of IE6 and IE7). I reckon they shipped IE7 at exactly the most damaging time for the web because If they waited another year or so then it might have been long enough to kill off IE altogether.

rapind 16y ago
That sabbatical is precisely why I will never ever promote Internet Explorer. It was ridiculous. I don't even care if suddenly MS produces the best technical browser available (highly doubtful, but even so). I don't care if it's a new team because it's the same company, and yes much of the same leadership. They blew it and they don't get another chance. They had the best browser back when IE4 launched. Given the amount of pain IE has caused over the years, it surprises me that any self respecting web developer could ever forgive them. "IE you are dead to me."
- masklinn 16y ago
  > That sabbatical is precisely why I will never ever promote Internet Explorer. It was ridiculous. Some (including standardistas and other web luminaries) argue it was a good thing overall (though it got long in the tooth around 2005-2006) because it allowed the web to settle and developers to better understand what they were working with (because the target got static, it became possible to explore in depth, not just in breadth). > They had the best browser back when IE4 launched. They also had the best browser back when IE5 launched and back when IE6 launched.
  - EiZei 16y ago
    IE6 the best browser available. Now there's a frightening thought.
    - davej 16y ago
      This is 2001, pre-firefox. If you want a frightening thought then try it's main competitor: Netscape Navigator 4! I remember Opera was my browser of choice around that time, it was a seriously nippy browser back then, way ahead of it's time. Unfortunately the fact that there was no free version prevented them from getting a decent share of the browser market. Later on, they did eventually release a free version but with an ad banner in the navigation bar (of course Opera is now completely free and doesn't have any ad banner).
      - rapind 16y ago
        Netscape complicator, I mean communicator. The browser that was almost impossible to download by itself instead of the entire suite of useless crap. I'm convinced the source code that became so unmanageable for the Netscape team started with frames.
    - icefox 16y ago
      I remember using Konqueror at the time. Plugins were in external processes and they introduced tabs and other insane ideas way ahead of the time.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      We're talking 2001 here, when Firefox was still mozilla/browser (and had no own name), an experimental branch of Mozilla, back when Venkman was the one and only debugger for Mozilla. KDE 2.0 (first release including KHTML), Opera 6 (new feature: unicode support), OSX 10.0 (and 10.1) bundling IE5/Mac. The alternative to MSIE was Netscape Communicator 4 (which had been stagnating since 1998), Mozilla 1.0 itself was still more than a year away.
  - rapind 16y ago
    That's a valid argument, however I'm sure you could argue that there would have been other benefits had they continued to innovate and release which may or may not have had a more positive net impact. Who knows? It doesn't lessen the pain any. Regardless, I'm definitely not going to thank MS for this since I'm pretty sure your argument was not their intended effect (What was their intended affect anyways? Did they just not care? Concern over the threat the web posed to their OS?) and I will continue to promote IE's competitors until someday IE dies a horrible death and sinks into oblivion. I'm also guessing you're of a similar view (albeit not as hardcore) and playing devil's advocate anyways ;)
  - markkanof 16y ago
    That's definitely an interesting point. Had Microsoft continued to add features to IE during that time they likely would have created a bunch of new "standards" purely because of their market share. There would not have been an incubation period where new ideas and standards could be worked out. Had Microsoft just pushed forward I suspect we would have a lot of "web standards" that wouldn't have much purpose beyond furthering Microsoft's monopoly. I'm not suggesting that Microsoft took this time off purposely to incubate new ideas, but it could be looked at as a beneficial side effect.
    - carlygeehr 16y ago
      In a bizarre way, MS is continuing to create standards: when you're a developer, you have to have all the IE bug fixes in your back pocket and know which bugs are IE's bugs and which ones are yours. How much time do you think is spent circumventing IE's shortcomings? It's strange to think that there's a whole slew of sites that get tons of traffic based on IE's flaws.
    - yuhong 16y ago
      Well, during the IE6 stagnation W3C was working on the incompatible XHTML2. WHATWG was created the year Firefox was released.
  - jacobolus 16y ago
    > Some ... luminaries ... argue Mind pointing me to some specific examples of these arguments?
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  It was horrible. But let's keep some perspective on why that sabbatical existed. It wasn't merely because MS had decided they dominated the browser market and didn't need to innovate anymore. More than anything it was because MS was afraid of continuing IE development. IE is what got MS into all the regulatory anti-trust trouble in the first place, MS was too afraid to make a new mis-step with IE which could land them in even more trouble.
  - noibl 16y ago
    They didn't get in trouble for making a browser. They got in trouble for making it impossible to completely switch to a different browser under Windows. There was absolutely no external influence stopping Microsoft from continuing to develop IE as a standalone product. So yes, it was for that first reason.
    - WalterGR 16y ago
      > So yes, it was for that first reason. Has Microsoft stated this or is it speculation on your part?
- Andys 16y ago
  This same argument is why I still have it in for Apple, despite their current success in consumer electronics. The Apple I know is the one from the 1990s who had things locked down so tightly, hardware and software, bit loyal developers who put their best efforts into the platform, as if to destroy any ecosystem that built up around their successful products. And I still feel that things haven't changed - if you can make money from iOS apps today, that is wonderful - but be prepared to get bitten one day.
  - jseliger 16y ago
    This same argument is why I still have it in for Apple, despite their current success in consumer electronics. I voted you up, but I'll note that one of the secondary reasons I wanted a PowerBook in 2004 was because Windows seemed so dominant and I didn't like the idea of Microsoft being able to completely control the Internet. OS X was the only OS at the time capable of competing with Windows for average users. Now, because of Firefox, Apple, and Google, it looks highly unlikely that Microsoft could in effect control the Internet even if they wanted to.
rbanffy 16y ago
> I reckon they shipped IE7 at exactly the most damaging time for the web Mission accomplished, then.
WalterGR 16y ago
This chart doesn't show the 5 year sabbatical that Microsoft decided to take between August 2001 and October 2006. Major versions of IE tend to be (are always?) synced to OS releases. What effect did the Longhorn Reset have on the sabbatical Microsoft "decided to" take? Does anyone know? I can't imagine I'm the only one to ask this in the intervening 4.5 years, but my Google searches aren't finding anything.
- cryptoz 16y ago
  My understanding is that once MS won the '90s browser wars, they disbanded the IE team entirely. Only when new competition arrived did they restart development. I could be wrong, though...
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Who knows, but the old saying, never attribute to malice, which can be ascribed to stupidity/ignorance. See http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Microsoft-take-so-long-to-release-Internet-Explorer-7 http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Microsoft-take-so-long-to-relea... During that same five year period MS screwed up virtually everything else they were working on. It's not surprising they also could't come to grips with getting IE out. To put it another way, do you suspect malice with how long Vista took? Probably not. I suspect that with Vista struggling all resources were moved to getting Vista back on track -- as important as IE is, Windows moreso.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      I don't think he attributed disbanding the IE6 team to malice, MS had no need for that team anymore since they controlled virtually all of the browser market, and their main platform focus was never the web so there was little incentive for them to keep innovating there "for innovation's sake". > It's not surprising they also could't come to grips with getting IE out. It's not that they couldn't get it out, there was no IE7 project until they reactivated MSIE in 2005.
      - 16y ago
Semiapies 16y ago
Maybe because five years ago was five years ago. I see nothing wrong with focusing on the most immediate five years.

by davej 16y ago

rapind 16y ago

That sabbatical is precisely why I will never ever promote Internet Explorer. It was ridiculous. I don't even care if suddenly MS produces the best technical browser available (highly doubtful, but even so). I don't care if it's a new team because it's the same company, and yes much of the same leadership. They blew it and they don't get another chance. They had the best browser back when IE4 launched. Given the amount of pain IE has caused over the years, it surprises me that any self respecting web developer could ever forgive them. "IE you are dead to me."

masklinn 16y ago
> That sabbatical is precisely why I will never ever promote Internet Explorer. It was ridiculous. Some (including standardistas and other web luminaries) argue it was a good thing overall (though it got long in the tooth around 2005-2006) because it allowed the web to settle and developers to better understand what they were working with (because the target got static, it became possible to explore in depth, not just in breadth). > They had the best browser back when IE4 launched. They also had the best browser back when IE5 launched and back when IE6 launched.
- EiZei 16y ago
  IE6 the best browser available. Now there's a frightening thought.
  - davej 16y ago
    This is 2001, pre-firefox. If you want a frightening thought then try it's main competitor: Netscape Navigator 4! I remember Opera was my browser of choice around that time, it was a seriously nippy browser back then, way ahead of it's time. Unfortunately the fact that there was no free version prevented them from getting a decent share of the browser market. Later on, they did eventually release a free version but with an ad banner in the navigation bar (of course Opera is now completely free and doesn't have any ad banner).
    - rapind 16y ago
      Netscape complicator, I mean communicator. The browser that was almost impossible to download by itself instead of the entire suite of useless crap. I'm convinced the source code that became so unmanageable for the Netscape team started with frames.
  - icefox 16y ago
    I remember using Konqueror at the time. Plugins were in external processes and they introduced tabs and other insane ideas way ahead of the time.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    We're talking 2001 here, when Firefox was still mozilla/browser (and had no own name), an experimental branch of Mozilla, back when Venkman was the one and only debugger for Mozilla. KDE 2.0 (first release including KHTML), Opera 6 (new feature: unicode support), OSX 10.0 (and 10.1) bundling IE5/Mac. The alternative to MSIE was Netscape Communicator 4 (which had been stagnating since 1998), Mozilla 1.0 itself was still more than a year away.
- rapind 16y ago
  That's a valid argument, however I'm sure you could argue that there would have been other benefits had they continued to innovate and release which may or may not have had a more positive net impact. Who knows? It doesn't lessen the pain any. Regardless, I'm definitely not going to thank MS for this since I'm pretty sure your argument was not their intended effect (What was their intended affect anyways? Did they just not care? Concern over the threat the web posed to their OS?) and I will continue to promote IE's competitors until someday IE dies a horrible death and sinks into oblivion. I'm also guessing you're of a similar view (albeit not as hardcore) and playing devil's advocate anyways ;)
- markkanof 16y ago
  That's definitely an interesting point. Had Microsoft continued to add features to IE during that time they likely would have created a bunch of new "standards" purely because of their market share. There would not have been an incubation period where new ideas and standards could be worked out. Had Microsoft just pushed forward I suspect we would have a lot of "web standards" that wouldn't have much purpose beyond furthering Microsoft's monopoly. I'm not suggesting that Microsoft took this time off purposely to incubate new ideas, but it could be looked at as a beneficial side effect.
  - carlygeehr 16y ago
    In a bizarre way, MS is continuing to create standards: when you're a developer, you have to have all the IE bug fixes in your back pocket and know which bugs are IE's bugs and which ones are yours. How much time do you think is spent circumventing IE's shortcomings? It's strange to think that there's a whole slew of sites that get tons of traffic based on IE's flaws.
  - yuhong 16y ago
    Well, during the IE6 stagnation W3C was working on the incompatible XHTML2. WHATWG was created the year Firefox was released.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  > Some ... luminaries ... argue Mind pointing me to some specific examples of these arguments?
InclinedPlane 16y ago
It was horrible. But let's keep some perspective on why that sabbatical existed. It wasn't merely because MS had decided they dominated the browser market and didn't need to innovate anymore. More than anything it was because MS was afraid of continuing IE development. IE is what got MS into all the regulatory anti-trust trouble in the first place, MS was too afraid to make a new mis-step with IE which could land them in even more trouble.
- noibl 16y ago
  They didn't get in trouble for making a browser. They got in trouble for making it impossible to completely switch to a different browser under Windows. There was absolutely no external influence stopping Microsoft from continuing to develop IE as a standalone product. So yes, it was for that first reason.
  - WalterGR 16y ago
    > So yes, it was for that first reason. Has Microsoft stated this or is it speculation on your part?
Andys 16y ago
This same argument is why I still have it in for Apple, despite their current success in consumer electronics. The Apple I know is the one from the 1990s who had things locked down so tightly, hardware and software, bit loyal developers who put their best efforts into the platform, as if to destroy any ecosystem that built up around their successful products. And I still feel that things haven't changed - if you can make money from iOS apps today, that is wonderful - but be prepared to get bitten one day.
- jseliger 16y ago
  This same argument is why I still have it in for Apple, despite their current success in consumer electronics. I voted you up, but I'll note that one of the secondary reasons I wanted a PowerBook in 2004 was because Windows seemed so dominant and I didn't like the idea of Microsoft being able to completely control the Internet. OS X was the only OS at the time capable of competing with Windows for average users. Now, because of Firefox, Apple, and Google, it looks highly unlikely that Microsoft could in effect control the Internet even if they wanted to.

rbanffy 16y ago

> I reckon they shipped IE7 at exactly the most damaging time for the web Mission accomplished, then.

WalterGR 16y ago

This chart doesn't show the 5 year sabbatical that Microsoft decided to take between August 2001 and October 2006. Major versions of IE tend to be (are always?) synced to OS releases. What effect did the Longhorn Reset have on the sabbatical Microsoft "decided to" take? Does anyone know? I can't imagine I'm the only one to ask this in the intervening 4.5 years, but my Google searches aren't finding anything.

cryptoz 16y ago
My understanding is that once MS won the '90s browser wars, they disbanded the IE team entirely. Only when new competition arrived did they restart development. I could be wrong, though...
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Who knows, but the old saying, never attribute to malice, which can be ascribed to stupidity/ignorance. See http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Microsoft-take-so-long-to-release-Internet-Explorer-7 http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Microsoft-take-so-long-to-relea... During that same five year period MS screwed up virtually everything else they were working on. It's not surprising they also could't come to grips with getting IE out. To put it another way, do you suspect malice with how long Vista took? Probably not. I suspect that with Vista struggling all resources were moved to getting Vista back on track -- as important as IE is, Windows moreso.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    I don't think he attributed disbanding the IE6 team to malice, MS had no need for that team anymore since they controlled virtually all of the browser market, and their main platform focus was never the web so there was little incentive for them to keep innovating there "for innovation's sake". > It's not surprising they also could't come to grips with getting IE out. It's not that they couldn't get it out, there was no IE7 project until they reactivated MSIE in 2005.
    - 16y ago

Semiapies 16y ago

Maybe because five years ago was five years ago. I see nothing wrong with focusing on the most immediate five years.