

What Microsoft's IE and North Korea Have in Common - jbpadgett
http://padgeblog.com/2012/12/16/what-microsofts-ie-and-north-korea-have-in-common/

======
polemic
The author argues that Microsoft should create an open source version of IE so
that it's marketing for IE would be more successful.

The commercial goal of the advertising is not to drive IE usage vs
Chrome/Firefox on Windows - it's to get people to buy windows machines.
They're [re]building the IE brand, dispelling negative perceptions around IE
(and Windows, by association) and presenting IE as a superior browser to drive
OS/computer purchasing decisions.

None of those goals are served by a cross-platform version - in fact, it would
only present a risk if the quality and experience was not similar or better to
the native version.

~~~
bediger4000
So, how's that going for them?

Didn't the last little video propaganda just note that IE "sucks less" than it
used to, and that all people who dislike IE are trolls? Wow, that's really
effective. IE propaganda like that surely makes me want to give up my browsing
experience and switch to Windows.

~~~
polemic
Weeeell it's a brand campaign, right, so they'll be measuring it in all sorts
of fuzzy terms that provide resistant to boring stuff like "numbers" and
"statistics". :P

Don't forget that you are not likely to be the target audience. I'm not a
marketing person, but my guess is they're looking to staunch the flow of home
users away from windows, and assuring CTO's that the browser won't continue to
hold the ecosystem back.

Attracting back Apple users or trying to convince Ubuntu fans to switch to the
dark side probably doesn't feature in the plan, for now.

------
ctbeiser
This is one of the most nonsensical posts I've seen in a while. Microsoft has
no substantial commercial interest in getting people to use IE. I'd guess it's
most important to make IE relevant so that people don't run away from Windows
Phone because of it's presence, but other than that, there's not much in it
for them. Sure, some ecosystem control, some ability to add proprietary
extensions to the web, but on the whole, saying Microsoft's software being on
only Microsoft's platform being like a dictatorship that puts it's leader's
status above it's civilians having food? I'm not sure I understand.

------
gurkendoktor
Apple has actually stopped updating Safari on Windows months ago:
[http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/25/apples-removes-
mentions-...](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/25/apples-removes-mentions-of-
safari-for-windows-but-version-5-1-7-still-available/)

Filed under link bait, IMHO. There are so many better opportunities, even
Windows Media Player for Mac would make more sense, if it was everything that
people want iTunes to be, and you could use it as a Trojan Horse for Windows
Phone sync, online services etc...

------
wtracy
To my knowledge Apple has discontinued Safari for Windows, so I'd say
Microsoft is not alone in tying their browser to their OS.

------
adamnemecek
"Even Apple makes Windows versions of Safari. So, why would Microsoft chose to
isolate the primary application delivery mechanism (browser) to only their
OS?"

1.) Maybe because it would be pretty hard to port IE to an OS with a pretty
different architecture and I'm not even sure what would be the potential gains
of doing so.

2.) Safari is based on WebKit so a lot of the cross-platform compatibility
bitchwork is already done by the WebKit project, not really Apple.

3.) It appears that Safari for Windows is dying if not already dead.

~~~
kyllo
_1.) Maybe because it would be pretty hard to port IE to an OS with a pretty
different architecture and I'm not even sure what would be the potential gains
of doing so._

The difficulty of porting the application is not the issue at all. There was a
Mac OS X version of Internet Explorer, and it was even the default browser in
OS X. Microsoft deprecated it in 2003 shortly after Apple released Safari.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_Mac>

The potential gains, of course, would be browser market share.

~~~
eurleif
The Mac version of IE was basically a completely different browser. It had its
own rendering engine, called Tasman, which was developed separately from
Windows IE's rendering engine, Trident.

~~~
kyllo
From the Wikipedia article I linked to in my comment:

 _Initial versions were developed from the same code base as Internet Explorer
for Windows. Later versions diverged, particularly with the release of version
5 which included the Tasman layout engine._

Again, the difficulty of porting the browser code over to OS X is _not_ the
issue. If Microsoft still wanted to have a cross-platform browser, they would
have one. The reason they don't is a business decision, not a technical
obstacle.

~~~
adamnemecek
No one said that it was technically impossible to port it. But it's not
exactly easy either and it's not a problem worth solving since it's a wasted
endeavor. And yeah I'm sure RMS can't wait to run IE on his machine.

------
securingsincity
I would hate to hear what the author would compare Microsoft to when it came
to silverlight, netflix and linux.

------
rwbt
Really? Not going cross-platform makes you North Korea? Linkbait... Surprised
it made to the HN homepage.

