

UK government: Upgrading away from IE6 costs too much - imagii
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/08/despite-petition-uk-government-to-keep-ie6.ars

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lwhi
I think it would be most sensible to at least create a strategy for moving
away from IE6.

The UK government's current stance doesn't address the problem .. it postpones
doing anything until support runs out in 2014.

What will happen then?

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loewenskind
They'll force MS to give them another 5 years.

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ramy_d
or MS could give them a pricepoint just slightly lower than what it cost to do
a proper upgrade?

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loewenskind
The cost in upgrading is changing all their existing systems, so the
"pricepoint" would have to be negative X million dollars.

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invisible
This is like saying that saving taxpayers money today is saving the taxpayers
money in general. This is totally untrue - 5 years of malware, support
tickets, etc. that need not be there costs way more than doing the transition
now versus having to do it later anyway.

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MichaelApproved
Aren't anti-malware software and similar expenses needed regardless of browser
version? This is a cost that can't be avoided so the upgrade isn't going to
eliminate that and save money in the long run.

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invisible
It is my experience that the risks are exponentially higher the further you
get from the "flagship" product. This is also true for Firefox - if you don't
update as updates become available you will soon find yourself with something
bad on your machine if you're not careful (and on Windows). Plus, while
Windows 7 built-in protection isn't great (which, if they went past IE6 they
should upgrade the OS too), it does prevent some massive system-wide changes
and rootkits.

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jdietrich
At the moment, the UK Government can barely afford a sandwich and a cup of
tea, let alone a major IT upgrade.

When support eventually runs out then the benefits of switching will clearly
outweigh the costs, but at a time when we're talking about reducing the number
of MPs and selling off whole government departments, I can't blame them. Maybe
the last government could have averted this, maybe not, but at the moment
we're such deep economic shit that it's just not a priority.

(disclosure: I voted Tory, I hate IE, I enjoy both sandwiches and tea)

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drac
Despite the last paragraph in the article, another reason for refusing to
upgrade is the costs involved in service pack upgrades. IE 7 is only available
for Windows XP SP2 and higher. Upgrading to SP2 was traumatic for many
organizations, so quite a few did not roll it out.

No upgrade from SP2? Well, IE 6 and only IE 6 it is then.

A related issue: IE 8 offers the ability to run in IE 7 compatibility mode,
with the inclusion of a header in the source web page. Despite dire warnings
to the contrary, some website developers for UK government insist on setting
the header and declaring that IE 8 compatibility has been achieved. I can't
wait to see how that will end, to be honest.

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eru
How about going to a different browser than IE? E.g. Links does not rely on
any service packs as far as I know.

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spoiledtechie
I totally agree. I actually worked on a closed government system back in the
day. The plain fact is that they moved to Web apps a long time ago. Most of
the web apps are geared towards IE6 and the messed up style guide. This means
that even if they try to upgrade some of their military operations will not be
working correctly and there for need a style upgrade... I know of just three
projects like this. Building for IE6 when IE8 was out was horrendous. So I
imagine there are a ton more projects just like it.

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webjunkie
Stupid. IE6 won't be around forever and upgrading to IE9/IE10/IEx will not be
cheaper then.

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cjg
No IE6 won't be around forever, but if, in 2014, they can directly upgrade to
IE10, say, then they will have avoided going IE6->IE8->IE10 and thus have
saved the cost of an upgrade.

Makes sense to me.

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DrJokepu
The problem is with this argument is that you can keep applying it forever.
Also, a number of relatively smaller steps are easier to manage than one
single big step.

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mazuhl
A sensible step would be to get into the habit of upgrading browsers/tools. A
workplace that finds it traumatic to upgrade to IE 7, 8 or 9 or from Windows
XP or Windows 7 or even from Office 2003 to Office 2007 is not going to be
prepared for changes in the future.

Small steps. Regularly taken.

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Tarks
I think you're missing that some of those small steps weren't obvious at the
time everyone was writing software that the government leans heavily on that
only works on IE6, the people that developed it are probably long gone by now
and rewriting everything is hardly justifiable.

Large banks are having a hard enough time ditching it and they have a clear
motivation to do so to aid competitive edges.

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rbranson
They should at least install Chrome Plugin.

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ramchip
The problem isn't on the client, it's on the server. Using the Chrome plugin
would break their apps just as well as using Chrome itself.

 _To test all the web applications currently used by HMG departments can take
months at significant potential cost to the taxpayer._

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skymt
Chrome Frame is only activated on pages that specifically request it with a
meta tag or HTTP header. If they deploy Chrome Frame government-wide, they
could start developing modern web apps without losing compatibility with their
legacy IE apps, allowing a gradual transition.

