
From Redmond with Love - IE team sends cake for FF4 - dragonquest
http://fredericiana.com/2011/03/22/the-return-of-from-redmond-with-love/
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Derbasti
I wish more companies would do something like this. Honestly, IE9 and all the
surrounding tech media is really leaving an awesome impression on me. Gestures
like this prove that the IE team wants to take part in a modern internet world
much more than any standard compliance chart ever could.

On a side note, I found Office 2010/2011, IE9 and Windows 7 a joy to use. And
this is in stark contrast to Office 2003/2008, IE8 or Vista. Some things seem
to be changing in Redmond!

~~~
some1else
Nothing will ever bring back hours of IE6 workaround time, or change my mind
about using a Windows computer.

Cumulatively, developers and clients paid millions in billable hours for their
neglect in monopoly.

They couldn't warm up to me even if they swapped their board of directors with
Sesame Street characters.

~~~
mattmanser
And all the man-years you saved users by using XMLHttpRequest? Otherwise known
as AJAX?

Or have you conveniently forgotten which browser that was introduced in?

One day you should download the version of Netscape that was around when IE6
came out.

~~~
some1else
You're correct, during their browser war with Netscape, IE was introducing
revolutionary features, albeit not all standards based. They even implemented
web fonts in IE4 if I'm not mistaken.

And then they sat on it for 4 years, refusing to fully implement the CSS 2.1
spec, refusing to fix ridiculous positioning bugs, and even refusing to fix
security flaws that they mandated non-critical, although several of them used
together often lead to arbitrary code execution on the client.

Like it is with User Experience in general, they ruined all the positive cred
they had with IE6, causing standards-aware web devs to develop for the lowest-
common denominator or invest their own time on every project for Microsoft's
technical debt.

It's not fair that IE6 quirking was a required skill and a to-do for web
developers, only because Microsoft had a browser share monopoly. Was it to
slow down the evolution towards applications/operating system in the cloud?
Mere negligence? I don't care anymore, they broke my heart.

~~~
yuhong
>and even refusing to fix security flaws that they mandated non-critical,
although several of them used together often lead to arbitrary code execution
on the client.

Source?

Anyway, even worse, back in the IE 5.x era when they added most of that stuff
like XMLHTTPRequest etc., they focused on that instead of complying with even
basic CSS1! (Yes, it was better than Netscape 4, but that was because the
JSSS/CSS fiasco that resulted in was a lot worse) IE6 added DOCTYPE switching
and a "standards" mode with better CSS1 compliance, but I don't think they
touched the buggy CSS2 support, and during the time they sat on it, guess what
people did with it that caused trouble when MS released IE7 that fixed some of
these bugs?

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pettazz
I still think it's funny how they brand the cake with their own IE logo. It's
like sending a picture of yourself as a birthday card.

~~~
sp332
I think it's more like a signature.

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gregschlom
Is that the IE3 icon on the cake?

Or maybe it's because the cake don't support full-resolution png icing.

Anyways, huge improvement over the first one, which was only black and white:

<http://fredericiana.com/2006/10/24/from-redmond-with-love/>

~~~
notyourwork
Sounds like Microsoft has never heard of the Carlito's Bakery or Charm City
Cakes. Considering M$'s size I think the cake could have been a hell of a lot
cooler.

~~~
sp332
It's just the IE team, and I'm sure "cake for competitors" isn't in the
budget.

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tianyicui
No wonder Firefox is planning to move to a shorter release cycle!

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FirstHopSystems
I think it's a hoax. If it was the real IE team parts of the cake wouldn't be
on the pan. I'm also pretty sure the E would be hanging off the right side.

~~~
moeffju
Not if the cake hasLayout.

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maurycy
A clever MSFT plan. It motivates the Firefox team to increase the number of
releases, so they eventually stop the actual development and realize that the
infinite supply of free cakes is easily convertable to cash.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
> the infinite supply of free cakes is easily convertable to cash.

Do you think there's a big market for second hand IE branded cakes? ;-)

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maurycy
The market for cheap food is definitely bigger than the browser's market. :-)

EDIT: And if their goal is to deliver the best browser, it would be more
efficient to buy GOOG shares with the money extracted from cakes. ;->

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geuis
I get the feeling Firefox gets more cakes from Microsoft than they send in
return, if its entirely based on release cycles.

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jeza
I guess it keeps the IE developers in a job. IE was neglected before FF
started taking market share away. Probably not many (or the right people)
working on it before that.

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sliverstorm
Does the FF team reciprocate?

~~~
jonursenbach
FF team reciprocates by putting out a decent browser. Everybody gets cake.

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cop359
This is a bit of a naiive question, But what is the business rational behind
Microsoft putting so much time and effort into IE? Where is the payback? Is it
just so more people have Bing as their default search? Is it just so that
Windows ships with a working modern browser as the user expects?

If anyone could clear it up for me, Much appreciated

=)

~~~
PakG1
You could ask the same of Google and Chrome.

An excellent treatise on the topic is discussed in _Breaking Windows: How Bill
Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft_ , by David Bank. It describes a lot of
the tensions that existed inside Microsoft as they tried to figure out how to
continue selling Windows as a platform, while still seeing the threat of the
web as a platform on the horizon. IE was part of that threat response to stay
in the game, ahead of the game, and in control of the game.

~~~
cop359
Interesting point. However it seems like the only way to make big money on the
internet is through advertisement and Google has that market locked up. Chrome
is just another tool for their social data-mining. I'm sure they keep logs of
what searches your IP has made (if you use Google Search), what emails you
have read (if you use Gmail) and what websites you visit (through Chrome). If
you sign up for any of their services then they can tie a name to an IP and
then track what other computers you use (so they will know for instance that a
work and home computers belong to the same person). This way they can profile
people and then carefully target advertisement towards them.

So then they funny result is that the more people use them the better they
get; and the better they get, the more people use them. It's a perpetual
motion machine, they feed on their own sucess so it almost seems impossible to
catch up with them.

So are you saying that microsoft is trying to replicate this with the Bing,
IE, Live/Hotmail ? Clearly that won't be enough. They're gonna need a huge
innovative breakthrough to win this battle...

~~~
PakG1
I'm not saying Microsoft is trying to replicate this at all. I would posit
that Google came and broke the rules of the software industry and made new
rules. Microsoft is trying to take the game back. They are admittedly trying
to copy Google on a number of points, but who can truly know what Microsoft's
end game is and what's going on in their heads except for Microsoft?

One thing for sure, Google coming in and messing up the rules is directly
attacking Microsoft's bread and butter: Office and Windows. That's where
Microsoft makes most of their money, particularly Office. Google has docs,
AppEngine, and more. For many mainstream people these days, the browser is the
only thing that they need; Microsoft is still powerful, but if the trends
continue, they'll be irrelevant. So I'm just claiming that Microsoft's trying
to do what they can to rewrite the rules of the game again and take back
control while they still have the resources to do so.

It's a lot more urgent now than before, which is why Microsoft is so heavily
and now _visibly_ investing into things like mobile, cloud computing, and the
like. The effort from Microsoft was always there before, but it always seemed
half-hearted. 3 years ago, you _never_ would have thought Microsoft would care
about web standards to the extent that IE9 does. MS Office was still offline
packaged software. Etcetera.

Anyway, I highly recommend the book. It's a fascinating read.

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rythie
Maybe it's to say thanks for supporting the other half of Windows users
Microsoft forgot, Windows XP users.

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nickpp
I guess sending cake to Google on Chrome release wouldn't be as funny. And it
would be too often as well.

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hanifvirani
This is a really nice gesture from Microsoft. A humble example for everyone to
learn from.

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enthalpyx
I wonder if Google gets a cake too...

~~~
Paulomus
From Bing? Presumably Google would put the cake under a microscope to see if
the flour came from their own cupboard.

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olalonde
But is the cake standards compliant?

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billybob
Aw, isn't that sweet. You know what would be sweeter? A little note attached
saying "P.S., we give up, we are switching to Webkit."

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sagarun
They keep sending cakes, Firefox will keep eating IE's market share cake!

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light3
The cake is a lie!

~~~
light3
So I've been tracking my karma on this post, its gone something like

1 -> 2 -> 0 -> 5 -> 2 -> 4 -> 0

Appears to be a submartingale(maybe) Ok I stuffed up the experiment by posting
this, the sequence after the 5th observations are no longer independent and
invalidated.

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ascendant
This is an excuse for people the world over to try and get in their supposed
witty slams on IE. I've personally always felt sad for the IE team because I'm
sure the engineers want to put out a badass browser that competes with the
best the market has to offer, and I'm sure the management and marketing types
are the ones that are demanding it's hobbled in certain ways to try and keep
their corporate clients on the hook using their products.

At least, that's how I envision it.

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shaggyfrog
Did they also hold a mock funeral for Firefox when IE9 shipped, a la
iPhone/WP7? Or are they finally done with that kind of moronic behaviour?

~~~
nchlswu
that situation was taken _way_ out of proportion

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latch
Maybe I'm in a particularly bad mood, but this was a lot cuter the first time.
I hate IE so much that maybe I've become sensitive to everything they do (at
least I admit that might be the case).

It feel condescending to me, especially in light of the many public
embarrassment that FF has caused IE (cheating benchmarks for example) and
given that if anyone deserves to get something for actually shipping it's the
IE team.

To me this is like the owner of a used car company sending a cake to the
president of Toyota for being the #1 car manufacturer.

~~~
statictype
I think it really is because you're in a bad mood.

There doesn't seem to be anything backhanded or condescending about this
gesture. Hasn't the IE team been doing this since before FF beat them in
market share?

This is more like the owner of Chevrolet sending a cake to the president of
Toyota.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
As much as I'd like it to be true, Firefox hasn't yet beaten IE in global
market share. They are number one now in Europe (by some stats) and hold pole
position in a bunch of countries but IE will need another 6-18 months to lose
their #1 position at current rates.

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CWIZO
"Considering the way they drove Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox into near oblivion
with devious practices, this seems a lot like sending a valentine’s day card
to your rape victim, every year." - from the comments on the original article.

But seriously, it's a nice gesture from Microsoft, it goes to show that there
are many different people working there and that we can't judge them as a
whole.

~~~
blub
The comparison to rape is in VERY poor taste and you certainly didn't have to
copy it here.

~~~
CWIZO
sheesh lighten-up a little. I find the comparison spot on. Not that I'm saying
that what Microsoft did can literary be compared to rape and the horrors it
puts a victim trough. I just thought it's a nice metaphor _sigh_

~~~
sorbus
It's not a metaphor, it's a simile.

~~~
lancefisher
A simile is a metaphor.

~~~
sorbus
No, it's a figure of speech. A metaphor is also a figure of speech, but
similes are not a subtype of metaphors (I went to look it up both before my
last statement and before this one, because I refuse to believe my own memory.
You might want to do the same).

~~~
lancefisher
So would you say a simile is like a metaphor?

