6 ms·
IE is certainly making good progress lately. However, when every other browser is releasing updates every 6 weeks, Microsoft could substantially benefit from n
by Osiris 13y ago
IE is certainly making good progress lately. However, when every other browser is releasing updates every 6 weeks, Microsoft could substantially benefit from not only a faster release cycle, but also automatic background updates.
- cleverjake 13y agoThe are doing both of those things.
- IvyMike 13y agoI suspect that there are some entities that consider the slow release cycle a feature.
- Touche 13y agoI suspect market forces will squeeze out those entities.
- josefresco 13y agoYes because every company will eventually be a startup with only a handful of employees and little investment in technology so that they can jump on the newest technology without costing the company billions. /snark
- Touche 13y agoNo, what's going to happen is SaaS companies are going to stop supporting old browsers and their webapps won't work in the browser the IT department is clinging to, the IT department heads will get fired and replaced by people who do a better job prioritizing. "Let's keep using IE8 because it's the newest browser to correctly run that app we developed in 2002" is going to cost people jobs.
- showsover 13y agoOr big companies just won't use SaaS products that don't support their version of IE.
- Touche 13y agoYup, that's possible. I'm betting the VP who wants to use Gmail is going to overrule the IT department head though.
- chaz 13y agoYou might be surprised. Supporting extra stuff can have serious IT costs. When the head of IT says it's going require x dollars, y FTEs, or z weeks in schedule slippage to bring on that support, the CEO turns to the VP and says, "Jim, is this really worth it?" But things can shift slowly. I worked at a big media company when the iPhone was launched. The next day, the CIO emailed the entire company of 20k and said that iPhones would not absolutely not be supported, and to please stop asking no matter what VP/SVP/EVP you were. It was years before iOS was permitted on the network.
- Touche 13y agoThis is exactly my point. This type of thinking is simply going to be weeded out. More efficient IT heads will replace the slower and costlier ones. Companies will lose potential employees who don't want to carry around a BlackBerry Curve or use Lotus Notes. The market has a way of correctly slow moving companies.
- chaz 13y agoI think we agree more than disagree, but I still take issue with your statement of "more efficient IT heads" and that they need to be "weeded out." It's not a type of thinking -- there was a clear business reason. Re: my example of the large media company I worked at: In 2007, it was a very small minority of employees who could afford the $599 device and wanted extra support for it outside of BlackBerry Enterprise Server. By 2010, there were a lot of iPhones and the case could be made that it would meet the needs of a significant portion of the company while pushing device costs to the employee as a BYOD, thus saving money while still being able to enforce some security policies thanks to iOS 4. The head of IT wasn't being a stodgy old fart (ok maybe a little) -- he/she made a rational policy decision that I think was correct at the time. Today I think they're on Google Apps. The problem I'm seeing now is that dozens of employees are sharing logins for the same SaaS tools. And all the passwords are the same so that it's "easy to remember." A single password compromise could leak a lot of data and cause a lot of damage. People like you and me know encrypt drives and walk away from a stolen laptop with only the cost of hardware, but IT managers today seem like they have a bigger headache to manage.
- bradleyjg 13y agoCertainly I consider UX stability a good thing. Just this week gmail decided that being able to open my calendar in a single click was a horrible idea. It only took me a minute or so to figure out wtf happened. But multiplied across a large number of people of varying computer literacy and near weekly changes you are talking about a lot of lost time. Much better to have an annual or biannual training day where changes across a range of software products can be introduced. I suppose someone will be along to stamp NOT AGILE on my forehead shortly.
- mkaziz 13y agozomg your statement is a travesty on all things best practice, and you should be branded a heretic for all times to come!
- Tobani 13y agoAlso they need to support XP. XP usage is still mind-boggling-high: http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.... ~1/3 of windows users are still forced to run IE8 at best. If Chrome, Firefox and Opera can run on XP why can't IE11?
- usaphp 13y agoMaybe because Windows XP is 12 years old now, and people who use Windows XP are mostly from third world countries who don't really care wether they have IE6 or IE11 installed.
- 300bps 13y agoThere are, sadly, a ton of Enterprise clients still using Windows XP as well as a ton of home users in first world countries. Windows XP still works "good enough" for most computing tasks. Having said that, since I'm used to more modern operating systems I find I'm lost on XP now but for people that never left it, it generally works "good enough".
- mgkimsal 13y ago"Windows XP still works "good enough" for most computing tasks." Well... when those computing tasks increasingly involve using web services, then no, Windows XP doesn't still work "good enough".
- mixmastamyk 13y agoWhat do web services have to do with XP?
- mgkimsal 13y agoIf I reword that as "services on the web", does that make it any clearer?
- 300bps 13y agoIE is certainly making good progress lately. If IE is making progress in usability, I don't really see it. I typically use Chrome for three reasons: 1. It's fast 2. It has better plugin support (i.e. Adblock) 3. It doesn't have random freezes Just today I thought I'd give IE 11 another try on my Windows 8.1 system. It wasn't long before I started experiencing weird random freezes that I literally never get in Chrome. Anyone reading my comment history will show that I use a lot of Microsoft technologies (Visual Studio, Windows Phone, etc) but I am frequently left wondering what the heck Microsoft is doing with IE because it's not working.
- pcwalton 13y agoIE's compositing and rendering are far ahead of Chrome, honestly. Direct2D and DirectWrite are really really good at using the GPU to render content, and the D3D-based compositing is really good. Microsoft is very good at graphics (and it helps that they control the whole stack of course).
- mayhew 13y agoIf there's one thing I was really impressed with when trying out Windows 8 and whatever version of IE it came with, it's the hardware acceleration when scrolling. I've never seen such smooth scrolling before, ever.
- amaks 13y agoThe fact here is that IE is only available on Windows, whereas Chrome and Safari support all platforms. The common denominator for them is OpenGL. BTW, is OpenGL inherently inferior to DirectX?
- Metrop0218 13y agoIE has Adblock Plus.... https://adblockplus.org/en/internet-explorer https://adblockplus.org/en/internet-explorer