My first guess would be that both companies stack incentives via artificial barriers like that. In the real world, I suspect/fear businesses just sit on legacy

My first guess would be that both companies stack incentives via artificial barriers like that. In the real world, I suspect/fear businesses just sit on legacy systems until something critical breaks. I imagine it's easier to get a business to upgrade to a new browser version than it is to get them to migrate to a new browser entirely. (Blame changes in shortcuts, UI differences, integration support, etc.) That said, these policies hold back the web. Cute marketing tricks[0] don't fix it. Sure, it says to upgrade. The newest version is unavailable for your OS: now what? [0] http://ie6countdown.com/ http://ie6countdown.com/