6 ms·

I'm not sure that they can't. Give Microsoft a compelling business reason to build a great browser that also supports IE 8,7, and 6 rendering modes, and I bet t

I'm not sure that they can't. Give Microsoft a compelling business reason to build a great browser that also supports IE 8,7, and 6 rendering modes, and I bet they'll do it.

dschobel 17y ago
Isn't reclaiming the 20-30% market share they lost to Safari/Firefox/Chrome reason enough?
- mcav 17y ago
  They're trying to support more standards -- by definition, they're just reinventing the work others have already done. So it's grunt work, only useful for their future influence and power. They could ship IE9 with WebKit in addition to custom rendering modes for IE<=8, and consumers wouldn't even need to know. It'd save MS a lot of work, that's for sure.
  - etherealG 17y ago
    I say let them worry about the cost/benefit ratio. If they can afford it, another engine with completely separate codebase is a good thing for the market. Just think how hard it would push webkit/mozilla/chrome if they did manage to beat them on speed. It would push them to get even better. Compeition is always good as long as 2 or more projects stay alive.
    - dschobel 17y ago
      ...another engine with completely separate codebase is a good thing for the market. You've just made an enemy out of every web-dev on HN :)
- jmtulloss 17y ago
  Probably not. I suspect that as long as IE is the default browser on Windows, their revenue doesn't change that much year over year. People who don't change their default homepage don't change their browser either. What is a compelling reason is revenue loss in their cash-cow franchises like Office. If they come to believe that they need a version of Office that works in the browser or they will lose revenue, then developing a fast version of IE is very important. If they believe that people won't use a computer that doesn't provide them with great experiences on the sites they love right out of the box, then developing a standards compliant version of IE is important.
  - cakesy 17y ago
    Yeah, but if they destroy all other browsers again, then they don't have to do any work on improving browsers. Making browsers actually goes against their business process, they want everyone on the desktop, not the web. They have been dragged into the web, and hated every step of it.
zefhous 17y ago
I think part of the problem is that they don't seem to view building good products as a 'compelling business reason.'
geuis 17y ago
I think the different rendering modes in IE8 is a serious defect. For example, when testing locally IE8 defaults to IE7 mode instead of IE8 standards mode. You physically have to go into the developer toolbar to switch it. My friend(who's a .Net developer) ran into this exact problem last week and couldn't understand why his site was failing in IE8, looked good in IE7, and worked well in FF & Safari. I've run into this problem more than enough times. If people need to use a particular older browser for a very narrow application, then they should keep an installation of that browser around for that specific purpose. Its the same idea with modular programming methods. I build my js in modules. My comment system is separate from my login system. In the last couple of days I have been updating the Facebook Connect logic in my login system and I haven't had to worry about updating logic in my comment code.

I'm not sure that they can't. Give Microsoft a compelling business reason to build a great browser that also supports IE 8,7, and 6 rendering modes, and I bet they'll do it.

dschobel 17y ago

Isn't reclaiming the 20-30% market share they lost to Safari/Firefox/Chrome reason enough?

mcav 17y ago
They're trying to support more standards -- by definition, they're just reinventing the work others have already done. So it's grunt work, only useful for their future influence and power. They could ship IE9 with WebKit in addition to custom rendering modes for IE<=8, and consumers wouldn't even need to know. It'd save MS a lot of work, that's for sure.
- etherealG 17y ago
  I say let them worry about the cost/benefit ratio. If they can afford it, another engine with completely separate codebase is a good thing for the market. Just think how hard it would push webkit/mozilla/chrome if they did manage to beat them on speed. It would push them to get even better. Compeition is always good as long as 2 or more projects stay alive.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    ...another engine with completely separate codebase is a good thing for the market. You've just made an enemy out of every web-dev on HN :)
jmtulloss 17y ago
Probably not. I suspect that as long as IE is the default browser on Windows, their revenue doesn't change that much year over year. People who don't change their default homepage don't change their browser either. What is a compelling reason is revenue loss in their cash-cow franchises like Office. If they come to believe that they need a version of Office that works in the browser or they will lose revenue, then developing a fast version of IE is very important. If they believe that people won't use a computer that doesn't provide them with great experiences on the sites they love right out of the box, then developing a standards compliant version of IE is important.
- cakesy 17y ago
  Yeah, but if they destroy all other browsers again, then they don't have to do any work on improving browsers. Making browsers actually goes against their business process, they want everyone on the desktop, not the web. They have been dragged into the web, and hated every step of it.

zefhous 17y ago

I think part of the problem is that they don't seem to view building good products as a 'compelling business reason.'

geuis 17y ago

I think the different rendering modes in IE8 is a serious defect. For example, when testing locally IE8 defaults to IE7 mode instead of IE8 standards mode. You physically have to go into the developer toolbar to switch it. My friend(who's a .Net developer) ran into this exact problem last week and couldn't understand why his site was failing in IE8, looked good in IE7, and worked well in FF & Safari. I've run into this problem more than enough times. If people need to use a particular older browser for a very narrow application, then they should keep an installation of that browser around for that specific purpose. Its the same idea with modular programming methods. I build my js in modules. My comment system is separate from my login system. In the last couple of days I have been updating the Facebook Connect logic in my login system and I haven't had to worry about updating logic in my comment code.