I've been hearing all this non-sense about killing IE6 and how is making the web a terrible place.
I understand how time consuming IE6 and how every time I do a project I see my budget suffer because of IE6. I hear my developers complain about web standards and how evil Microsoft is.
But then, we look at the analytics. Analytics don't lie. They are the pulse of your business. And at the end is all about revenue. Hard cold cash. And when my site, has 19.000.000 IE6 visits, I couldn't care less about web standards. I just can't make them change their browsers. Most of them can't.
"[...] how [IE6] is making the web a terrible place".
I can't really understand you. You're saying IE6 isn't terrible despite it adding so much to project development and costs - it's not so bad now all the bugs are categorised and things like IE7.js (javascript DOM manipulator to fix lots of IE bugs) are available. But back in the day IE6 prevented us from using the latest techniques available in the other major browsers and caused me (and I'm sure thousands of others) many hours of trouble.
I'm using links2 here - we're not talking about not serving someone, we're talking about ditching IE6 as part of the category A line; if they get the majority of info then that's fine don't worry about visuals being exactly right, etc..
Microsoft was evil with IE6 (couldn't they have just told us about hasLayout from the start), they've been forced by the likes of Mozilla to get with the program and now IE8 is quite a good browser with some innovation too (but they should have done PNG like everyone else, what is it 12 years they've failed to get PNG right - a browser that can't even display an image properly after 12 years of dev from the biggest software company in the world ... I mean come on guys, I digress).
Well, actually, analytics do lie. Browsers such as Opera and OmniWeb have been pretending to be other browsers for years, just so various web sites would actually work for them. And now even the big browsers have this option somewhere.
You also need to match those analytics against actual sales. Ultimately, it's more important if 50% of your checkouts are IE6, not 50% of your home page views.
I'm not disagreeing with the notion of supporting the users you actually have, you'd be crazy to turn your back on a big audience; just be clear about what your data really means.
This is what a lot of people fail to get - designers in particular. Sure, they may think they're cool because their 'made in the bedroom' portfolios exclude IE users, but when faced with real world situations away from the arty farty tools of Photoshop, clients get really pissed off when their sites don't work in the browser a) they're using and b) their customers are using.
I can't wait for IE6 to die off, but it's not going to happen any time soon.
Do the same people take their 1985 Datsun Sunnys to the garage and complain that the radio doesn't get digital and it doesn't get the speed and comfort of a Bugatti Veyron.
If your business still has lead pipework or asbestos ceiling tiles then they need upgrading. If it still has "made for IE6" web apps they need upgrading.
Is this your website statistics or a general stats? Because it makes sense if YOU are getting that many hits from IE6. Depending on type of biz you are in, say a modern web2.0 app, most likely the user at other end is little savvier than a user locked in IE6 jail.
There are many people still using XP and I can't see that as a problem.
Three years is not an eternity - what fraction of PCs currently in existence were bought in the last three years? Not so few that we can treat this length of time as effectively infinite.
If IE6 works then why are you so insistent on people abandoning it? Is it to make it easier for those creating web pages? If so, just provide a lower level of support for the IE6 user.
I understand how time consuming IE6 and how every time I do a project I see my budget suffer because of IE6. I hear my developers complain about web standards and how evil Microsoft is.
But then, we look at the analytics. Analytics don't lie. They are the pulse of your business. And at the end is all about revenue. Hard cold cash. And when my site, has 19.000.000 IE6 visits, I couldn't care less about web standards. I just can't make them change their browsers. Most of them can't.
And I can't afford to not serve them.