
Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand - nsp
http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/03/17/microsoft-is-killing-off-the-internet-explorer-brand/
======
badloginagain
I'm willing to give Spartan a chance, honestly. The ModernIE initiative taken
by Microsoft the past few years feels like Microsoft gave IE to a team of
competent engineers and told to run with it. They dropped support for older
versions of IE and upgraded the technology behind it.

Firefox is too slow. As a power user I notice millisecond differences in page
render times. I may be an outlier but I think most people who spend a lot of
time on browsers will notice even small differences in load times. I've long
switched from Chrome as my main browser, disliking the direction Google has
been going with several of their products.

I might be an outlier, but I'll give Spartan a chance to impress. [As a side
note, it's amazing how crippling to your reputation bad technology decisions
are. IE 6-9 gutted respect for Microsoft]

~~~
badsock
I think you're being too mild in your side note.

The first half of the IE6-9 era was part of a deliberate scorched-earth
strategy to harm the open Internet, and the second half was them furiously
backpedalling from that when it failed.

It wasn't a technical decision, it was cynical business strategy, and having
their IE brand get trashed is the least of what they deserve. I'm kind of
annoyed with how quickly people are willing to forgive them, considering what
bad actors they've been up until recently.

~~~
ryandvm
It certainly wasn't an act of altruism, but the entire modern web can trace
it's AJAXy roots back to Microsoft's decision to eschew web standards.
Microsoft added XMLHttpRequest to Internet Explorer so that they could develop
Outlook Web Access.

IE may have had utterly stank HTML compatibility, but adding XMLHttpRequest
and inventing AJAX was probably the single most profound changeset in the
history of the web.

~~~
reustle
"Inventing Ajax" does not excuse the behavior though. Plus, I'm sure someone
else would have come up with a similar idea not long after.

~~~
wantab
Such as not supporting XHTML until IE9.

------
OliverJones
They killed that brand ages ago. Now they're going to stop mentioning its
name.

~~~
angularly
Heh, exactly my thought when I saw the headline. As a webdeveloper since 1995,
I can only say "phew, finally" \- that browser probably cost me 2-3 years of
my life, spent hacking various webprojects to make them work in IE.

~~~
aikah
You forget the fact that IE used to be the best browser out there.Netscape
ended up being total shit.

~~~
dredmorbius
MSIE was _never_ the "best" browser. It may have been better than Netscape,
but there were numerous alternatives -- Opera, Galeon, Konqueror, and more.

Eventually Mozilla / Phoenix / Firefox picked up the mantel. Then (somewhat)
Chrome, though it's getting _really_ effing annoying these days.

~~~
InclinedPlane
IE 4 was far and away the best browser in its day. Nothing else was as fast
and as reliable. Netscape had devolved into a steaming pile of garbage which
had horrible resource usage problems aside from being massively unstable.
Other competing browsers weren't much better than netscape either. It wasn't
until years later that things changed.

~~~
njloof
But Netscape ran cross-platform, without which the WWW would have devolved
into a Windows-only niche product. And that would have meant the only tablets
today would be running Windows.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I don't think that follows. Also, it's not as though Netscape didn't have it's
moments either. There was a time where it was better, a time where IE was
better, a time where firefox was better, a time where chrome was better, and
so on. Time marches on.

------
PopsiclePete
With this new CEO, Microsoft is a different company. Cloud & Mobile all the
way. .NET/CLR is open-source. First class support for Linux and OS X.
Commitment to standards.

At the risk of sounding like a complete lunatic, here's my prediction for the
next 10 years:

* Microsoft abandon traditional Windows development. * They take a FreeBSD/Linux distro and add a "Windows" layer on top, ala Apple. Unix and Unix-like OS's become the only game in town. "Traditional" apps are emulated. New Apps are written in a CLR-compatible language _only_ for the modern runtime. * IIS, IE, Sivelight - all are left to stagnate. * Office becomes HTTP/JS, hosted only.

~~~
MichaelGG
Can you elaborate on what MS would gain by tossing their rather fine kernel
and using Linux/BSD? Particularly since that'd lose the massive amount of
hardware support from current drivers.

~~~
fuzzythinker
One strong reason is to lure back developer love. One reason why most startups
use Macs or linux machines is because open source libraries runs on linux and
most of the time on OSX without much modifications. Windows is always an
afterthought and is lucky if Windows support is available in a few months. MS
knows this and knows that if the trend is not reversed soon, Windows market
share will decline.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
Most online SaaS/Internet startups? Yes. Maybe some on Azure too.

Every other type of business startup is going to use Windows because software.
Call centers, restaurants, supermarkets, retail stores, real estate,
financial, pharmaceutical, etc.

~~~
rjbwork
We are a SaaS startup using exclusively Azure. Minus the complete lack of a
data warehousing/OLAP service, it's great!

~~~
MichaelGG
Have you compared the cost of your compute/VMs to Google Compute Engine? When
I did, Azure was literally double the cost. And it has useful SSD options
which Azure doesn't yet have.

But Azure is a fairly cool product overall.

~~~
rjbwork
Also, no, we haven't. They don't provide native .NET, like Microsoft
(obviously), access to all of their services. Azure's pretty much the only
option for infrastructure-less .NET at the moment.

------
mhomde
You know the world is going crazy when Google is evil, Apple is doing tacky
devices and Microsoft makes the best browser

~~~
archagon
Honestly, that's true enough to be pretty funny.

------
nostromo
> "We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser
> called Project Spartan"

Oh joy, another browser from Microsoft to test. :\

~~~
cssmoo
I don't know why you were down voted.

We have to support Ie7,8,9,10,11 and 11 for metro in and out of compatibility
mode across three fucking platforms due to control styling differences. Now we
have Spartan and whatever shtcrock will ship as legacy.

We'll lose IE7 when vista is dead. We'll be left with enterprise IE11 well
into 2028!

Why? In financial services all our clients are cheap, dumb and incompetent.
Unpatched win7 from "managed service providers" is the reality. If yore lucky
they're not some hideous terminal services shit crock.

This is why we go "oh joy".

Its also why everyone who works at the places goes home to Apple and Android
kit.

~~~
freehunter
Is that really any different than if enterprise clients were demanding support
for Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Firefox 4, etc? I've actually been in that
situation, a place I worked in 2011 had a web app that only worked properly in
Firefox 2.something.

Blame companies for demanding an app specific to one version. Blame the
developers for writing apps that only work on one version. Blame Microsoft for
making breaking changes between versions. But only one of those things is
Microsoft's fault. They've been pushing people hard to update their browser
since IE7 was released.

~~~
cssmoo
Actually its ensuring that all the show stopping bugs that IE has don't take
our app out or make it unusable. Unfortunately clients don't upgrade their
browsers if cost is involved.

------
rverghes
I wonder if this is a way to get around backwards compatibility issues. If
it's a new brand with a new name, maybe there won't be expectations that it
will work like previous versions of IE.

------
azinman2
“We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser
called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name
the thing.”

Ummm that's confusing. If you're going to kill it, kill it dead.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Well, they can't, because enterprise/legacy sites. They need to keep it
kicking around.

But the non-awful modern browser, that won't be called IE.

~~~
O____________O
Is there some proof of this outside of this USA Today article?

I came here with the exact same concern as the GP comment.

 _“We’ll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we’ll also have a new browser
called Project Spartan... "_

It just reeks of marketing double-speak that gets engineers excited, only to
find out that they're stuck maintaining code for N + 1 browsers now.

Incidentally, Microsoft rebranding exercises infuriate me. Arguably, Spartan
is a "new" product, but by that measure any product rewrite should get a
completely new, unrelated name rather than a version number. I remember COM +
DispInterfaces ==> ActiveX, Outlook Express ==> MSN Messenger, MSN ==> Bing.
It's just irritating and confusing to both developers and consumers.

~~~
gsnedders
AIUI, the version of Trident (i.e., mshtml.dll) shipping in Win10 is that of
IE11. There shouldn't be any behavioural changes, and Trident should only be
used in IE12 for intranet websites by default.

------
bdcravens
> "Not that Internet Explorer branding will vanish entirely. It will still
> exist in some versions of Windows 10, but Project Spartan will be the main
> way Windows 10 users roam the Internet."

If IE was an issue for users, pretty sure that means they'll continue to use
Firefox or Chrome, not Spartan.

~~~
300bps
_If IE was an issue for users, pretty sure that means they 'll continue to use
Firefox or Chrome, not Spartan._

If Microsoft wants to "win the browser war", in my opinion the best thing they
could do would be to create their own WebKit (or even Chromium) distribution
and have it installed in Windows by default.

~~~
Someone1234
That may work, but it would be bad for the market overall. The more browser
engines we have the better, least of all we wind up in another IE6-like
situation where one browser/engine rules the world and dictates web-features.

PS - Yes, I know Google broke away from Apple's WebKit branch. But a lot of
browsers are still very WebKit-like.

~~~
cwyers
And that's also a pretty big reason why Microsoft may not want to be on
WebKit. Google forked WebKit because it and Apple couldn't agree on what
direction to take things. Why would Microsoft be able to work with either of
Apple or Google than they could work together on WebKit? So it's very likely
that it wouldn't be a WebKit-based browser, but a browser based on Microsoft's
WebKit fork or Microsoft's Blink fork.

------
ams6110
Does it really matter? Do they need a browser at all? Browsers are all pretty
much interoperable now. What strategic advantage is there in developing and
maintaining their own browser? Nobody pays for browsers. They _might_ pay for
content or apps delivered in the browsers. That's what Microsoft should worry
about. They've lost their browser monopoly, move on.

~~~
CHY872
You maintain your own browser so that you can influence the development of the
web. For example, Apple used Safari's influence to push touch events,
Microsoft tried to use its influence to standardise pointer events, Google's
been pushing NaCL, Dart etc.

In order to consistently have weight with changing CSS, HTML rendering etc you
basically need your own browser - and most of the changes we've seen in the
last few years have come out of Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Apple.

~~~
brc
There is also the issue of your army of tech staff doing demos and
presentations using your competitors tools, or shipping your operating system
with somebody elses browser installed.

Microsoft need a browser and always will.

~~~
blumkvist
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.seroundtable.com/matt-
cutts-...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.seroundtable.com/matt-cutts-google-
seo-future-1368536726.png)

------
grandalf
Absurdly, users have to install Windows 10 to use this new browser. Why not
write it in .net and have it work on all versions of Windows typically found
in the wild?

~~~
joshuapants
Their goal is to have as many people running the current OS as possible. Every
exception like that they make is an exception that keeps people using the old
versions and keeps them scrambling to maintain them.

~~~
throwawaymsft
Some people are going to stick on the old OS no matter what. Their computer
still works, why buy another?

We can stamp our feet or work with that reality. We have 70% of China on
Windows XP with no hope of a modern browser from MS
([http://www.computerworld.com/article/2484761/microsoft-
windo...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2484761/microsoft-
windows/china-has-a-massive-windows-xp-problem.html)). At least Chrome will
work on those old systems. At least web devs can use modern features on those
systems.

If the browser is the primary carrot to get someone to upgrade your OS, the OS
value prop sucks.

~~~
joshuapants
First, you don't have to buy a new computer to get a newer version of Windows
(especially since 10 seems to run just as well as 7/8 on the same hardware, if
not better). Second, since MS is apparently offering free upgrades to 10 for
consumers on 7/8 it doesn't seem like cost is really a factor. The China case
is interesting, but I'd like to see some more recent figures on usage, since
that article is about 2 years old. I did some quick searching, but everything
I could find seemed to be from around that timeframe.

I don't know that the browser is a primary carrot, but it's part of the deal.
If you can get enough of their new software to run on, say, Windows 7 to
duplicate major functionality of 10, what's the point in upgrading at all? It
doesn't make sense to have (people who will stick with the old OS no matter
what) + (people who might upgrade, but don't because they can keep the old one
and still get the cool new features of the new one) using older versions of
Windows, thus increasing maintenance on old software.

~~~
throwawaymsft
1/2: I'd posit the people using XP in 2015 are probably not the ones capable
of upgrading their existing OS. New OS means new computer for them.

3: Users of every other OS are enticed by features other than the browser.
Only Windows ties the OS to the browser.

~~~
joshuapants
> 1/2: I'd posit the people using XP in 2015 are probably not the ones capable
> of upgrading their existing OS. New OS means new computer for them.

Are those people capable of installing a new browser after making the informed
decision that it's better than IE 8?

> 3: Users of every other OS are enticed by features other than the browser.
> Only Windows ties the OS to the browser.

Every other OS? Let's look at the major players in desktop computing: Windows
and OSX. Windows has IE/Spartan, you can as of now only get them on Windows.
OSX has Safari, there was an abortive attempt to develop it for Windows but it
didn't take off and is now abandoned. I don't think this is too surprising.
Here I am on OSX Mavericks making this post from Safari 7.1.3 because Safari 8
is only available for Yosemite. Given that the browser is the main piece of
software that many consumers interact with, I think it's fair to say that the
browser is still a significant value proposition, even if it's not the only
one.

------
Stoo
I always thought the Internet Explorer branding was the one thing they got
right. If you're not a technical person and you've got a new computer and
you're trying to get onto the internet for the first time do you use:

    
    
      Firefox  
      Chrome  
      Opera  
      Internet Explorer
    

The last one says exactly what you want to do.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I'd think something in the line of "Microsoft Web" or "Windows Web" would be
better.

The name "Internet Explorer" was right, but the feeling that web developers
have with it, ain't. So that's why they have to change it..

If they use Microsoft Web for a cross platform application, the naming would
identify Microsoft and "Web". With Windows Web it's solely targetting the
Windows platform (and not crossplatform as their goals are changing)

------
brianbreslin
I would be curious to see how well browser brand names have
associated/resonated with the average computer users over time. I know my mom
uses chrome because I made it her default web browser and hid explorer.
However she doesn't refer to it as chrome, just "the web".

~~~
whoopdedo
I've lost count of the number of times I asked someone what browser they used
and was told "Yahoo."

~~~
gagege
About 4 years ago (note: not 14 years ago) my boss at the time told me "AOL"
when I asked him that question. Immediately I thought he was joking, then I
thought he must be mistaken and was telling me what his homepage was by
accident. But then, to my horror, he showed it to me, and I realized he was
completely correct. He was using some ugly purple "modern" version of an AOL
browser that I didn't even know existed.

~~~
smacktoward
_> He was using some ugly purple "modern" version of an AOL browser that I
didn't even know existed._

That was probably Netscape 6
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_6](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_6)),
or Netscape 7
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_%28version_7%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_%28version_7%29)),
the two versions of Netscape that AOL managed to squeeze out after acquiring
them before giving up on the "Netscape" brand entirely and laying all the
developers off.

The thought back then was that there would be a "Mozilla" brand working on the
core browser tech as open source code that was strictly for developers, while
AOL would take Mozilla tech and use it to periodically release consumer-facing
browsers under the brand "Netscape." This turned out not to work in practice,
since the main contributions AOL would make in turning Mozilla into Netscape
revolved taking a perfectly useful browser and making it _less useful._ (An
example: Mozilla included a pop-up blocker, but AOL disabled it in their
"Netscape" builds. Yes.)

AOL/Netscape ought to be a business school case study in how to completely
demolish the value of a brand after paying out the nose for it.

~~~
dchest
AOL Browser is not Netscape
[http://discover.aol.com/aoldesktop97/](http://discover.aol.com/aoldesktop97/)

------
stuart78
I fear that the browser itself will live forever. At least in my parent's
basement where the PCs are like Mr. Burns' indestructibility:
[https://vimeo.com/96581518](https://vimeo.com/96581518)

So IE6 it is.

------
Walkman

        It will still exist in some versions of Windows 10, but Project Spartan will be 
        the main way Windows 10 users roam the Internet.
    

No, it will be Chrome or Firefox :D

------
robbrown451
They'll probably just call it "The Internet."

------
ChikkaChiChi
Spartan is still Trident, right? So then it's still Microsoft using Microsoft
stuff, but eliminating a ton of cruft that builds up over the years due to
backwards compatibility.

Historically, Apple (at least under Jobs) were the ones to declare an old
standard dead while dragging us kicking and screaming into the future.
Microsoft always proudly stood by and told you that your crappy program from
1992 would still be able to run on each version of Windos that came out, no
matter how big and bloated the beast became.

Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come? Could the next version of Windows
(Not 10, obviously) finally declare the end of backwards compatibility and
force obsolete software into a virtualization ghetto?

~~~
Sammi
Yes, Spartan is a fork where they cut out old cruft.

------
jeorgun
Is their new project architecturally different, or just a rebranding? I've
thought for years that they should rename the thing, to get rid of the stigma,
but it'd be kind of a shame to completely abandon the browser just as it was
catching up.

~~~
untog
Architecturally stripped down to remove the old compatibility modes. Which is
fine by me - IE11 actually isn't bad.

------
Gustomaximus
My take on this while not a horrible decision, it is a weak one for MS. My
rationale;

1\. 70% of the world doesn't care about their browser and will use what’s is
put in front of them. There was that classic video where people didn't even
know the difference between the internet and a browser a few years back. For
this 70% unless someone swaps then to another browser, which thankfully people
love doing, they'll use IEX for the rest of their life. These people have been
trained to click the blue 'e'. Why take that away from the masses and open the
door for them to look for alternatives?

2\. For the remaining people that do care about a browser, we're going to know
if it’s a great browser or not. We understand IE6 is not IE11. In the same was
FF was awesome a few years back, we know it’s fallen back, and would recognise
it improving if it (hopefully) does.

3\. Microsoft announcing they will create a new & awesome browser, and
actually doing so, are not connected. It wouldn't surprise me if MS invest all
this marketing money on spinning a product that is just as frustrating as IE,
just for a new set of reasons. And now we have brand confusion + an annoying
browser with a bad name. People prefer familiar bad, than unfamiliar bad.

4\. Microsoft is a bloody big and wealthy company. They can afford developing
2 browsers for a while. Why not launch and release this Spartan browser 'for
power users'. They can use it as an experimental ground to push boundaries
whilst not risking the stability and working of their core product. As this
team proves their metal, they can push components of Spartan into IE, or not
if the browser fails to deliver. Spartan can be used to buy new street cred
for MS. Mum uses IE but young me uses Spartan. And if spartan succeeds by
default it will bring credibility to IE, risking much less if it fails to gain
favour. As a marketing guy rather than building the conversation; Spartan vs
Chrome I’d much prefer to have IE vs Spartan vs Chrome.

And if you bothered to read this far, you probably like browsers. So you might
enjoy a video a buddy and I made while on holiday for some really serious (/s)
browser speed testing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaT7thTxyq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaT7thTxyq8)

~~~
blumkvist
4) Because spartan is as much (if not more) about removing features from IE
than adding them. Also, IE will ship with win10 for legacy support.

3) and 4) Based on my experience with win10, MS are executing extremely well
these days. I can't wait for Spartan and the new office.

------
jordigh
I wonder if they're gonna go with Webkit. There was some speculation that the
"new" MSFT would be going that route.

~~~
aquilaFiera
It will not use Webkit. They internally forked Trident and tore out all the
legacy code. From what I've heard the two code bases don't much resemble each
other anymore.

Source: [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-
microsofts...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-microsofts-
new-rendering-engine-project-spartan/)

~~~
megaman821
I forgot where I saw it, but the claim is that the new Trident engine has
diverged more from the old than Blink has from Webkit.

------
serve_yay
I guess it's not just us nerds in our bubble who dislike it.

~~~
qnaal
still?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%28Cascading_Style_Sheets%29)

~~~
serve_yay
I have verified that this is indeed a Wikipedia page. Thank you.

------
mortdeus
Man, their new CEO is a breath of fresh air. Im actually starting to respect
the MS brand again.

------
Ezhik
I hope they name Spartan after their magical browser girl mascot, Inori. She's
cute.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
See:
[https://www.facebook.com/internetexplorertan](https://www.facebook.com/internetexplorertan)

------
alkonaut
> we’ll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed
> Project Spartan

Recursively codenamed it, sneaky.

------
X-combinator
Here's the main source:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9217296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9217296)

------
pbhjpbhj
Will Spartan be only for Microsoft OS?

------
brockers
...and the congregation said AMEN!

