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Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

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Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#141
post #82

Does it really matter? Do they need a browser at all? Browsers are all pretty much interoperable now. What strategic advantage is there in developing and maintaining their own browser? Nobody pays for browsers. They might pay for content or apps delivered in the browsers. That's what Microsoft should worry about. They've lost their browser monopoly, move on.

the answer from "silverstorm" is correct. To elaborate a bit, if you add a feature or API to the underlying OS, but there's no corresponding browser feature that makes use of it, to someone who spends most of their time in a browser the OS feature may as well not exist. Microsoft's main reason for investing in IE has generally been to try to add to the perceived value of Windows by making new Windows features accessible through the browser and thereby more relevant to web-centric PC usage. Examples are taskbar integration in Win7, live tile support in Win8, the emphasis on hardware acceleration in IE9+ (which was designed to try to make the underlying Windows graphics system more relevant to web browsing), smooth touch panning/zooming in IE10+ (by being early adopters of the Windows DComp/DManip APIs), better font rendering on high-DPI displays via DWrite etc.

Note that if other browsers themselves adopt new Windows APIs in competitive response, that actually still benefits Microsoft because ultimately they don't care about the browser for its own sake, they care about increasing Windows API and feature usage across all browsers. But in practice competing browsers tend to be late adopters of new Windows stuff (e.g., even now nothing but IE supports DComp/DManip and Chrome is just very recently getting around to improving its Windows high-DPI and text rendering support), hence Microsoft funds IE.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, you don't have to buy a new computer to get a newer version of Windows (especially since 10 seems to run just as well as 7/8 on the same hardware, if not better). Second, since MS is apparently offering free upgrades to 10 for consumers on 7/8 it doesn't seem like cost is really a factor. The China case is interesting, but I'd like to see some more recent figures on usage, since that article is about 2 years o…

1/2: I'd posit the people using XP in 2015 are probably not the ones capable of upgrading their existing OS. New OS means new computer for them. 3: Users of every other OS are enticed by features other than the browser. Only Windows ties the OS to the browser.

> 1/2: I'd posit the people using XP in 2015 are probably not the ones capable of upgrading their existing OS. New OS means new computer for them.

Are those people capable of installing a new browser after making the informed decision that it's better than IE 8?

> 3: Users of every other OS are enticed by features other than the browser. Only Windows ties the OS to the browser.

Every other OS? Let's look at the major players in desktop computing: Windows and OSX. Windows has IE/Spartan, you can as of now only get them on Windows. OSX has Safari, there was an abortive attempt to develop it for Windows but it didn't take off and is now abandoned. I don't think this is too surprising. Here I am on OSX Mavericks making this post from Safari 7.1.3 because Safari 8 is only available for Yosemite. Given that the browser is the main piece of software that many consumers interact with, I think it's fair to say that the browser is still a significant value proposition, even if it's not the only one.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being too mild in your side note. The first half of the IE6-9 era was part of a deliberate scorched-earth strategy to harm the open Internet, and the second half was them furiously backpedalling from that when it failed. It wasn't a technical decision, it was cynical business strategy, and having their IE brand get trashed is the least of what they deserve. I'm kind of annoyed with how quickly people a…

Leaving aside the greater Windows thing, let's be honest - all the major browsers in that era basically said FU to the standards and raced ahead deploying their own stuff. There was greater interplay between the non-IE browsers, but that was because of marketshare and grim realities. Every browser was guilty of releasing features and functions that were "Best viewed in Browser X"

Sure, Netscape Corp. did, and good riddance.

But the Mozilla Foundation was founded in between IE6 and IE7 and, if I recall correctly, their stand on a standards-based web was there from the get-go. They fought a war, against Microsoft in particular, and were starting to win by the time Chrome came in and cemented the victory.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#144
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has moved to an evergreen OS model: http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/01/21/the-next...

But it's for people running 7 and up, for one year. The 70% of Chinese users on XP aren't going to see the benefit of this. (Why didn't Microsoft make it for XP too? They want to squeeze that last sale out of people. They don't realize the greater threat is people leaving their platform entirely.)

How many of the 70% of Chinese users on XP were using licensed copies in the first place?

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#145

With this new CEO, Microsoft is a different company. Cloud & Mobile all the way. .NET/CLR is open-source. First class support for Linux and OS X. Commitment to standards. At the risk of sounding like a complete lunatic, here's my prediction for the next 10 years: * Microsoft abandon traditional Windows development. * They take a FreeBSD/Linux distro and add a "Windows" layer on top, ala Apple. Unix and Unix-like OS's…

Can you elaborate on what MS would gain by tossing their rather fine kernel and using Linux/BSD? Particularly since that'd lose the massive amount of hardware support from current drivers.

One strong reason is to lure back developer love. One reason why most startups use Macs or linux machines is because open source libraries runs on linux and most of the time on OSX without much modifications. Windows is always an afterthought and is lucky if Windows support is available in a few months. MS knows this and knows that if the trend is not reversed soon, Windows market share will decline.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#147
post #91
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything gets faster: computers have 4x the memory and processing power of 10 years ago, browsers are easily 10x faster than they were 10 years ago. However it appears that the average web page has gotten more than 40x slower. (They're also not really pages, they're "apps".) People my age or a bit younger (early 20s) say craigslist and hackernews look "hideous" but dammit this is how web pages are supposed to be.

I'm 40 and grew up online with an acoustic modem. There is no fucking way craigslist is the way the web should look. Many sites go to far the other direction but even CL is begging to update their look.

I really hope they don't change, I love the simplistic design and never having to worry about major layout changes is great. The downside, their massive legal team has a larger budget.

Even the small layout changes Reddit has done the past few years has started to drive me away.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#148

With this new CEO, Microsoft is a different company. Cloud & Mobile all the way. .NET/CLR is open-source. First class support for Linux and OS X. Commitment to standards. At the risk of sounding like a complete lunatic, here's my prediction for the next 10 years: * Microsoft abandon traditional Windows development. * They take a FreeBSD/Linux distro and add a "Windows" layer on top, ala Apple. Unix and Unix-like OS's…

I've thought about this a lot too and I mostly agree, but I think they'd keep the Windows branding and NT kernel and just start making the POSIX/Unix layer installed by default and supported as first-class.

I'd love a Windows machine to work the same way I use my OSX machine: using Terminal.app and HomeBrew to develop and use unixey apps, but with a nice GUI and hardware support that's better than the Linux distros out there. I can confidently develop say, rails applications, test them locally, and just push them to production on Linux servers and I've never once thought "hey, I wonder if this will break due to differences in OSX to Linux." It just never has made a difference. I want windows to be like this too.

I can get there with Windows now with Cygwin or SFU, but I want it all to ship with Windows, and binaries I create are unlikely to work anywhere except other people who have installed the whole stack. Plus there's no good terminal emulator for windows I'm aware of.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#149
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that Netscape lived on and became Firefox.

Netscape lives on as Seamonkey.

I cannot believe that Seamonkey still lives! In fact they just had a release a week ago. And by looking at the features, I think you are right. Netscape lives on as Seamonkey in its most complete form.

Re: Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand

#150
post #33
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is mostly marketing (i.e. still using Chakra and Trident engines), the biggest change from a web developer's perspective is that the new Spartan browser will be evergreen[1]. [1]: https://plus.google.com/+PaulIrish/posts/f15yUhu4tE3

I may be wrong, but I believe that they replaced the old rendering engine (Trident), with a new one (EdgeHTML.dll).[1] But Trident will still be around, for compatibility with old websites (especially for enterprise applications). So, it's not just marketing... [1] http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/26/inside-microsofts...

Wonder which rendering engine they'll use for desktop email?
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