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Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

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Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#91

Post by nirvdrum »

yuhong wrote: post #83
wwweston wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there was a browser that did standards better at the time of IE6's initial release. Maybe Opera. And in my opinion, the bigger problem with IE6 was that it was buggy -- both where it purportedly followed standards and where it had its own way of doing things, behavior often didn't match spec or had unexpected side effects. It took devs years of trying to figure out where all the bodies were buried before…

Yea, many people forget that IE6 actually improved standard compliance over IE 5.5.

There's another side to it too that isn't popular, but IE was in and of itself a standard. When you own 90% of the market, whatever you do is a de facto standard. And I was pretty okay with that up until they decided to stop doing anything innovative with the browser.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#92

Post by mbell »

dpark wrote: post #71
davedx wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any research to backup your claim?

Actually, yes. http://www.ie6countdown.com/ IE 6 holds a 1% market share in the US. How many corporations in the US are mandating IE 6 if it's only got a 1% market share? You'll also note that IE 6 has a nearly 28% market share in China. Now, this doesn't say that these are pirated installs, but they are obviously XP or older, and this is clearly where the bulk of IE 6 market share is.

Keep in mind where browser usage statistics come from, in this case, NetApplications. If your not visiting some chosen list of sites you are not counted. Thus IE6 installs used mostly internally or stats from sites that don't really support IE 6 won't end up getting counted properly.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#93

Post by anamax »

phillmv wrote: post #76
sliverstorm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic, as soon as you saturate the market, you are dying?

Yes. You need to find/create more markets. Look at Apple. iPod -> iPhone -> iPad. If I invest 100 dollars in you, I want to receive a percentage back after a certain while. You need to be able to give me 103 dollars back the next year just to beat inflation, i.e. for this to not have been a complete waste of my time. In real terms, this means you need to grow your business by at least 3% in order to give me that retu…

> If I invest 100 dollars in you, I want to receive a percentage back after a certain while. You need to be able to give me 103 dollars back the next year just to beat inflation, i.e. for this to not have been a complete waste of my time.

Yes.

> In real terms, this means you need to grow your business by at least 3% in order to give me that return.

No.

Suppose you want 3%.

You give me $100 and I buy $100 worth of goods which I then sell for $106. I give you $3 (there's your 3%), keep $3. That leave me with $100 to buy goods to do it all again.

Note that this biz doesn't grow at all but it can throw off 3% as long as I can keep buying at $100 and selling at $106.

What about inflation you say? Multiply all the numbers after the initial $100 by your inflation factor the first year and use the updated numbers (and your inflation factor) each subsequent year.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#94

Post by protomyth »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #11

The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will have any impact on them. The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.

Educational institutions using certain testing software from a textbook publishers will probably block updates also. The problem is that, like a lot of enterprise software, the testing sites are fairly fragile and don't react well to changes in browsers. After getting into a situation where students couldn't take tests do to an update, most system admins curse at the sky and then block updates until given the go ahead. It sucks, but the book publishers make poor software.

// ok - just to head off all the switch testing, books, etc. comments - none of those are options. certification testing sites are kinda non-negotiable

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#95

Post by ricree »

phillmv wrote: post #88
tomkarlo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right in that most businesses need to grow to increase their value (generally because growth is built into their current valuation) but the narrative you're using isn't on target. It's entirely possible for a business to give investors good returns even if their business or market isn't growing. Profitability and cash returns from a business can grow as revenues decline if the company either increases operatin…

Please correct me if I'm wrong! But: >Profitability and cash returns from a business can grow as revenues decline if the company either increases operating efficiency, or reduces in investment in recognition of the declining opportunity. Sure. When I say growth, I mean "make more money this year than you did the year before". This doesn't directly translate into "make more widgets", of course – that's just the (in an…

>Sure. When I say growth, I mean "make more money this year than you did the year before".

If I understand tomkarlo's point correctly, he's saying that you don't have to make more money year to year in order to have a viable business. Rather, you simply need to keep expenses low enough to manage a respectable profit for your investors. That profit need not necessarily grow year to year for investors to find it worth holding.

Of course, valuations will be made completely differently for such a company, but that doesn't mean they can't exist.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#96

Post by bdunbar »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #11

The article points out that MS will still provide blocking tools for companies. Corporations are the major source of IE6 browsers and I'm not sure this will have any impact on them. The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.

The best we can hope for is that high consumer adoption rates will force many more sites to drop IE6 support which might spur companies to finally test and upgrade.

It won't, if my experience is anything to go by.

I believe most of the 'IE6 only' apps are not 'on the internet' but in-house only applications.

Ours certainly are.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#97

Post by paulirish »

dspillett wrote: post #47
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With regards to the HTML5 and CSS3 level standards that Firefox, Chrome and IE10 are going to be supporting by the end of 2012? Yes. Compared to these, the IE8 JavaScript engine is quite slow too. it's worth looking a few years ahead if IE8 will have another decade of popularity, which isn't impossible. Even without that longevity, the hindrance of the installed base of IE7 and 8 will grow over the next couple of yea…

> the IE8 JavaScript engine is quite slow too I would go with very slow. Faster than IE6, but not by nearly as much as more modern browsers are faster than it. DOM manipulation is very slow compared to more modern browsers (recent versions of Chrome, FF, Opera, ..., even IE9) too. DOM changes being slow is what you'll notice more with most code. As an aside: make sure you set X-UA-Compatible (see http://msdn.microsof…

> I would go with _very_ slow.

Yup. Here's a chart to put IE6 v IE8 v IE10 javascript engine into perspective: http://goo.gl/3ACqo

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#98

Post by ArbitraryLimits »

phillmv wrote: post #70
ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what makes you think the "enterprise" market is less lucrative than it used to be?

No growth. Everyone who could possibly use a Windows license has a Windows license and drags their feet about upgrading. You're either busy growing or you're busy dying. As a potential shareholder, I care more about growth than straight up profitability.

OK, I interpreted your original comment as saying that big corporations in the aggregate spend less money on software and its associated services than they used to, and I couldn't imagine how that could be true.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#99

Post by jchrisa »

phillmv wrote: post #89
dextorious wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"""Yes. You need to find/create more markets.""" Actually you don't "need" anything. There are tons of examples of profitable companies that do one thing / product, or several things / products and do it for a century or more, with thousands of employees that do not look to expand on other markets. Even more so for companies with less employees. """If I invest 100 dollars in you, I want to receive a percentage back a…

I don't mean to be adversarial, but could you provide examples? >Yeah, that's why the stock market promotes cancerous growth of companies. I have troubles with this sometimes. I lie awake at night and think about the little I know about finance and economics and I wonder - is this all a zero sum interaction? Abstractly, the earth is a closed system, right? Of course, value and money are also abstractions and so aren'…

I've been reading Sacred Economics: http://www.realitysandwich.com/homepage_sacred_economics

It's the clearest explanation of this I've heard in a long time. However it's a bit long and deep, if you want an essay length version of the argument, it is here:

http://www.realitysandwich.com/money_and_crisis_civilization

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