

37signals to Drop IE6 Support - bdotdub
http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2008/07/basecamp-phasin.html

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ajross
I think this says more about their customer base than it does about the state
of IE6 in the market as a whole. There are _lots_ of IE6 users still out
there, many of whom are using corporate installations that they can't upgrade.
If 37signals (did I spell it right?) doesn't need that market, more power to
them. But the reality is that better browsers just aren't as simple as
providing a list of "click here" installation links.

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webwright
Agreed on the customer-base point.

I'd guess their ie6 visitors are <3% - and I'd wager making stuff work for ie6
requires a disproportionate amount of their time, which could be spent serving
the majority more effectively.

As a comparison, RescueTime's ie6 visits weighed in at about 3.7% over the
last 30 days.

~~~
bdotdub
That's surprising (but great news!) that your IE6 visitors are that low.

I agree, I'd imagine they have comparable numbers to make a decision like
this. It'd be interesting info to know (anyone from 37signals out there? ;)

~~~
webwright
One of the 280Slides guys said their IE6 # was 6% or so, as another data
point.

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maxklein
You know, I do not write software for Windows 2000. They are about 10% of my
market, but I don't bother testing on 2000, because I choose to focus on the
XP and up market. Nobody even questions this policy or finds it controversial.
Why should a website not also decide to focus on 90% of its users so that it
can make a better product?

~~~
edw519
_Why should a website not also decide to focus on 90% of its users so that it
can make a better product?_

Because some people just don't want to leave a dime from every dollar on the
table. That's all.

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cstejerean
if only the math were that simple. Chances are that focusing on 90% of the
market != 10% decline in revenue.

~~~
edw519
And that's exactly why some people want every eyeball they can get. Because
they don't know.

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0x44
37Signals isn't really in the "eyeballs" business.

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arn
Apple will also be dropping IE6 support in their upcoming MobileMe service. A
very consumer oriented product.

[http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/23/mobileme-browser-
requirements...](http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/23/mobileme-browser-requirements-
page-found/)

~~~
tx
... yet another island of users who wouldn't have IE6 anyway. I'd be way more
impressed with either Google/Yahoo/MSN dropping IE6 - THAT would be an awesome
gift for all of us.

~~~
etal
Of those three, who do you think is most likely to jump first? Yahoo is very
corporate-friendly, so I'd expect them to be the last to give up IE6 support.
MSN might want to push everyone towards the latest IE version so Microsoft can
finally stop supporting IE6 altogether; Google might push for Firefox, but
then they might draw some antitrust criticism for that.

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petercooper
Since 37signals makes an API available for most of its services, it would be
theoretically possible for someone to come along and build an alternative IE6
compatible front-end to 37signals' products. I expect, however, no-one will,
demonstrating that there is no economic reason to support it.

~~~
andreyf
I can't imagine such a service having good growth...

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dzohrob
Many sources [1] show that IE6 still has more global usage than IE7. Though
I'm sure 37signals' userbase is not represented well by global data, turning
away users of perhaps the most popular version of the most popular browser is
an interesting move.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers>

~~~
mikeryan
Where did you get that from?

I clicked through the links on that page and the most recent month had this:

<http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008/April/browser.php>

~~~
Xichekolas
What is really amusing about those stats is the 77 visitors still using IE 3.
I don't even have a 12 year old computer that still functions, let alone a 12
year old browser.

~~~
thwarted
No, 77 is the age of the IE3 users.

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bprater
God, I didn't realize IE6 hit the streets in 2001. What is it that makes
corporate cultures so slow in upgrading to IE7, especially if they are locked
into the Windows platform?

~~~
jcl
I get the impression that many companies have internal applications that were
written to be compatible with IE6... software written by employees or
consultants who are no longer available.

The mere act of enumerating IE7 incompatibilities in these applications (let
alone fixing them) represents a development cost that some companies will put
off for as long as possible.

~~~
xlnt
why can't they just let people install firefox, and use ie6 for internal apps,
and firefox for external apps?

~~~
Xichekolas
Because the people that do desktop support don't want to support more browsers
than the minimum possible. I'd bet a decent proportion of desktop support
calls are about 'problems with the internet' (read: browser) and starting
every one of those call with "are you using IE or Firefox?" would most likely
get answered with: "I dunno! I want to use Google!"

~~~
froo
heh

"we got a problem here, uh yeah, the website is down"

<http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/>

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icey
Those guys are lucky to be able to do that. Our user base is still 35% IE6.

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geoffim
I just think that it's funny that this announcement comes on the heels of the
"features are a one way street" posting...not that IE6 is a feature of any
kind of course.

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michaelneale
Its well worded. I imagine the original drafts would have been pretty harsh on
IE6 (although 2001 - that was a LOOONG time ago, to be fair).

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volida
say that to mainstream users!

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qeek
How I wish I could do that as well.

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edw519
_Why are we making this change? IE 6 is a last-generation browser. This means
that IE 6 can't provide the same web experience that modern browsers can._

For example?

If I didn't know any better, I'd think that this was the same old "IT B.S."
that we've been listening to for 30 years. You have to upgrade for our
convenience but we tell you that it's for yours.

I know of many companies that don't want to pay maintenance. They say, "I
don't want any upgrades and I don't want to pay for them. It works perfectly
now. If I want anything to change, I'll ask for it and I'll pay for it. Why
should this be any different that anything else that I own?"

Is this move for the benefit of the supplier or the customer?

Honestly, I've constantly see remarks that say you're lame or old fashioned if
you still use IE6, but I sure would like to hear one of these posts provide
some concrete data _why_. (And please don't say tabs or extensions, those are
features many do not see a need for.)

~~~
juanpablo
Semi-transparent *.png and ":hover" support and lots of Javascript and CSS
bugs

~~~
edw519
Thank you. Now we're getting somewhere.

~~~
trevelyan
Try submitting an AJAX get request with a variable than ends with UTF-8 data
(chinese glyph) and has been fetched from the DOM.

I hate IE6.

~~~
Tichy
Aren't there libraries that handle that kind of stuff for you?

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jamesjyu
This is just laziness. They should support IE6 until it is the minority of
installs on all machines.

37signals has always extolled the mantra of usability. But, this move puts
them entirely against that. You need to work within the constraints of the
user, and one of them, unfortunately, is IE6.

~~~
mikeryan
There tends to be a very fine line between "laziness" and "increased
productivity". Having to spend umpteen hours supporting legacy browsers can be
seen on both sides of that fence.

From an operational perspective if they feel that this won't have too extreme
an impact on their customers I think it makes a ton of sense from a
productivity standpoint.

