Regardless of what you think of Microsoft’s IE team and the new IE7, is anyone else puzzled by their public relations strategy? Announcing IE8 after Bill Gates says it’s coming but not adding any details, Dean Hachamovitch, the IE team’s General Manager gets a whole other flame fest going on on his blog.
You will hear a lot more from us soon on this blog and in other places. In the meantime, please don’t mistake silence for inaction.
Let me point out the obvious: content-free or joke posts are not silence. After the self-congratulatory post on
The First Year of IE7, one ‘dk’ pointedly comments:
I am a front-end programmer and a co-founder of a start-up. I can tell you categorically that my team:
- Won’t download and play with Silverlight
- Won’t build a Live widget
- Won’t consider any MSFT search or ad products in the future
And the reason is because of IE - because MSFT disregards its most important relationship with us. Until this relationship is repaired, nothing else stands a chance.
That sentiment runs deep among developers. No MSFT technology will be considered by devs bitter about the MS tax. IE is a public relations disaster, and their non-silence silence is costing Microsoft dearly. If top management can’t see that and fix it, something very rotten is going on inside MSFT.
5 comments ↓
Something needs to be done about this; I’m just not sure what. The fact remains that internet explorer is a major blocker in the viability of the web as an application platform. It seems likely to me that this is an intentional move on MSFT’s part; the more viable the web becomes, the less important they are.
What frustrates me perhaps more, though, is that the other web browser vendors aren’t doing us that many favors either. Safari’s choice to support Flash’s color-spacing has rendered PNGs nearly useless, despite the fact that IE7 now supports PNG transparency.
We live in interesting times. Web application developers are forced to support at least three major platforms. Within internet explorer, there are two major versions (both widely used) that behave nearly completely differently in some very important respects. Looking at it in that light, it is amazing to me that super-rich applications like GMail function as well as they do.
I think somebody needs to step up and say: No, we’re not supporting internet explorer anymore. There are several other free browsers available that run our application just fine. How much do you think that company would save in IE bug killing time, and stress?
A more general question: How much money has IE’s lousiness cost web application vendors around the world?
Since the middle of 2002 it was clear to me that Microsoft was doing everything in its power to slow the adoption of web standards.
The reality is that Microsoft has only two cash cows that heavily depend on one another for survival. MS Office needs Windows and vice-versa.
The reality is that the only reason for using Windows today is MS Office and to some extent games. Why I say to some extent is that not everyone plays video games on their computers as lots of gamers prefer console gaming. Because it’s a potential cause for worry on Microsoft’s part they are doing everything they can to corner that market with developer tools like DirectX.
The reality in today’s market is that if Microsoft made Internet Explorer as good as the other browsers out there their office suite would suffer from even more competition like that of Google Docs. Without MS Office being a requirement for running a business few companies would even choose Windows.
Microsoft has all to gain from slowing down web adoption. Don’t expect me to believe their marketing speak. I think they have been and will continue to screw us over.
C’est bien toi qui aimes les puzzles?
http://moilavie.blogspot.com/2007/06/le-puzzel-deinstein-et-le-mien.html
Daniel
I think it is good that you are starting to focus your hate on a particular product/group at Microsoft where it is justified.
There is some good stuff coming out of Microsoft and it would be a shame to throw out everything because of the contempt that you feel for that one area.
There are quite a number of Microsoft employees that I know of that refuse to use IE.
MSFT is a big organization, with many employees and many different viewpoints. It is naive to assume that it is a single minded entity, hell bent on world domination. Sure it does dumb things, sure it pisses me off sometimes, but so does, Sun, Oracle, Ibm, Netscape, Novell, ….
…and if you really don’t want to deal with IE. Do what I do, don’t use a browser to deliver your apps at all, write your own client and then you are in complete control :-p
don’t use computers or watch tv and or read the newspaper. The numerologists and thought control people are manipulating everyone. Stop everything. It is time to make a difference. organize my minions!!! I am your internet godd.
Peas and carrots and onions,
Johngo
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