Earlier quoted context omitted.
The largest IE6 population work wise is the US Government and they have little to no intention of upgrading to anything else anytime soon. I'm currently stuck in the hell of developing web applications for government contracts that are targeted to IE6. For example... No multi css class support in IE6, which kills lots of JS libs. Horrible stuff.
You MIGHT be right, but I do web application development for government, and I was recently surprised when my new laptop was delivered with IE8 on the standard image. For this particular agency, EDS is their GSS provider, so if EDS is incorporating IE8 into their ESA image, I wouldn't expect that it's too far off at other agencies they provide general support services for. Of course, now I've got to make all the apps…
I was especially surprised to hear about the piloting of Firefox. Is there a site somewhere to keep up on technology rollouts across the different US Gov't agencies? Or at least the ones EDS provides support for?