I feel like Microsoft should have branded IE10 as a completely new piece of software and not as the newest Internet Explorer.
Then it would have become a feature of Windows 7 instead of just another browser. It would have also given them the chance to try some new things without feeling like they had to keep any kind of IE legacy.
Yes, they would have had to support 2 different browsers for a time, but they have the resources to do that.
They could have taken the opportunity to compete more aggressively with a lighter weight browser. Microsoft is full of brilliant people, if they were given a mission that said "Make an HTML5 browser, give it the fastest, most rock-solid JS interpreter you can, and oh yeah, include the DLR by default" that they could probably deliver something pretty interesting without having to deal with the IE legacy.
I probably should have said that they would have to maintain two separate teams working on browsers; but I imagine they do that as well given the number of people that work on browser teams.
I feel like Microsoft should have branded IE10 as a completely new piece of software and not as the newest Internet Explorer.
I totally disagree with this. You have to remember that a sizable portion of computer users don't really understand what a browser is. To these people, IE = internet. So for Microsoft to remove that kind of brand equity just wouldn't make sense.
Wouldn't they be able to resolve that by packaging their new browser as the default in Windows 8? They could even call it the "Microsoft Bing! browser"
The name "Konqueror" is a reference to the two primary competitors at the time of the browser's first release: "first comes the Navigator, then Explorer, and then the Konqueror"
IE9 not supporting XP at least had some sort of justification, regardless of whether it was a good decision. Vista was a large platform upgrade/rewrite, and they mentioned particular features IE9 was using that they didn't want to bother re-implementing for XP (graphics stack, security). But Win7 is not such a drastic upgrade over Vista (architecturally, anyways). So what's the explanation for this?
If you can't see my point, honestly I don't think I could explain it to you. Imagine I just said, "nothing to see here, move along". Don't spend too much time on it.
Hacker News is the port of call for the more skilled members of the Apple Fan Club.
I find it quite amusing since one of the most impressive kinect "hacks" ever was pulled off @ MIX but this is the most upvoted MS article in the last 2 days.
Two vendors, browsers, and operating systems competing in the same space. Expecting one of those competitors to support its browser past a certain number of OS releases without expecting the other to is a double standard.
The explanation is probably, "We want to sell licenses for the latest version of Windows".
Microsoft played the lock-in game too well and they can't even get their customers to upgrade to new versions of the same software. Since Windows is a one-time purchase, if no one is buying the new versions of Windows, Microsoft is making much money off of these new versions.
I've been using Windows and Linux side-by-side for different things since 1996. Some things have just been more trouble to set up in Linux than I wanted to bother with, with Windows available and easy to use. But Vista annoyed me enough that I am gradually switching more of my work to Linux, hopefully by the time this Vista box dies, I will just switch everything over to Linux.
Probably ARM support thats coming with newer code out of Microsoft. May have been too costly and had too many breaking changes to get it on Vista. Just a guess.
You have to consider several things that probably went into this decision:
1. Small and declining user base for Vista means it becomes less important for Microsoft to target those users. In fact Windows 7 already has twice the market share that Vista does and it's still growing rapidly.
http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201003-201103
2. If you project what some likely release window for IE10 and the next version of Windows will be (Win8) Microsoft is positioning itself to only have to support two operating systems. The cost of investment into a 3rd OS, especially one with small and declining market share (relative to it's other OSs), could just be too costly.
Makes sense given that a year from now, MS won't be supporting Vista at all (eg with security updates) if you don't have some enterprise-y extended support contract.
Why does microsoft still spend money building a web browser? I understood this in the 1990s because it locked people to windows, it was a feature, and hopefully it sold MSN subscriptions.
But it's not the 1990s anymore.
Let google spend their money on this, or let mozilla spend their money on this.
Is there any reason microsoft doesn't bundle firefox with their operating system, and just EOL Internet Explorer?
Is there any reason microsoft doesn't bundle firefox with their operating system, and just EOL Internet Explorer?
Despite common belief, MS actually wants the best browser in the world. But they want it to be noticeably the best.
The fear MS would have if FF did their browser is that the FF browser for Windows offered no advantage over the one for Linux or the Mac. Or even worse, the Linux version of FF was substantially better than the Windows version.
Now you can argue that IE isn't as good as Chrome or FF, but at least MS knows that's their decision. They've allocated their resources and made their business case. If FF is providing the browser then MS could end up in a situation where the most visible end user feature is out of their control.
Let me flip the question on you. Do you think Apple ever would/should simply let FF or Chrome be their iOS web browser and stop doing Safari mobile?
I'm not sure. I know Google spends a ton of money paying to be the default search engine in Firefox. No idea what would happen if Microsoft tried to do the same thing on its own with their own defaults.
I'd guess it would be kind of a PR nightmare for them though. Nobody questions those defaults when the browser is owned by Microsoft.
Why does any company spend money on building a browser?
Microsoft provides a range of different development tools and programming languages for web development. There is the modern stuff such as ASP.NET, Silverlight, etc, but lets not forget VBScript, ActiveX, etc, the latter not widely supported by other browsers.
Microsoft has more to lose technology wise by dumping its browser than the other companies do.
They're still following the policy of "embrace, extend, extinguish"; the browser market just got away from them for a bit. Once they ship a browser good enough to shove out the other players with a bit of extra leverage from their desktop near-monopoly, it will become more obvious.
Well that's a disappointment. Since Vista and 7 share so much of the same architecture, I'd be inclined to believe this decision is completely political, which reflects poorly on Microsoft's leadership. This is hardly helping Microsoft to stay competitive with Firefox and Chrome, and it needlessly makes Vista a sub-par web development platform.
There were few people dumb enough to buy it but plenty who were stuck with it as a default install that didn't want to then shell out $150 for Windows 7 so soon.
MS even wanted about that much for me to upgrade to a version of Vista that supported the 64 bit chip that came with the machine on which they had put Vista. That machine became a dual-boot with Fedora and I was on the road to Linux-land.
Looks like MS is pushing hard for "upgrade to our latest os or DIE"... It's ok, their office will support windows 2k if it has to because its the big money maker. And people will leave IE behind soon enough.
IE10 not being supported by Vista is like how things weren't supported by 2000/ME but were supported by XP. Vista is like 2k, low quality and often skipped over.
Then it would have become a feature of Windows 7 instead of just another browser. It would have also given them the chance to try some new things without feeling like they had to keep any kind of IE legacy.
Yes, they would have had to support 2 different browsers for a time, but they have the resources to do that.
They could have taken the opportunity to compete more aggressively with a lighter weight browser. Microsoft is full of brilliant people, if they were given a mission that said "Make an HTML5 browser, give it the fastest, most rock-solid JS interpreter you can, and oh yeah, include the DLR by default" that they could probably deliver something pretty interesting without having to deal with the IE legacy.