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The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

vwgroupsupply.com

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Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#61

Post by samd »

laut wrote: post #60
samd wrote: post #57

Does anyone else get the feeling that the entire automotive industry could be disrupted by a company that focused on design, usability, and modern technology in their car interiors? It seems to me you could replace just about every car's dashboard with an iPad and already be light-years ahead of the industry standard. In fact the problem seems to get worse as you add more technology and money; if Top Gear is any indi…

The dashboard is not the most important thing in the entire automotive industry. Car companies are focusing on design. They are spending billions on it. Regarding the Ferrari 458, it can show the current speed as a number while showing the map at the same time.

I know it's not the important thing in the entire automotive industry. But I think it just might be to the average driver. Assuming, of course, you've got the mechanics right. Like a hierarchy of needs, having a reliable car to go from point A to B is the foundation. If you had already had a car with the same performance, reliability, safety, efficiency, etc. of a Honda Civic how could you beat Honda?

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#62

Post by troymc »

joelthelion wrote: post #58
emilsedgh wrote: post #15

"For security reasons, the Volkswagen Group does not recommend other browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Netscape etc. as they show security gaps." This probably means they have serious security holes which could be easily triggered by other browsers.

I think it simply means that this page was written more than five years ago.

Indeed. Aol stopped supporting Netscape (the browser) in 2008.

Ref: http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200810/312/Netscape...

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#63

Post by russell »

Apologies for being mind-numbingly obvious, but this is an opportunity for being very disruptive, and similar opportunities exist in every hide-bound industry. Unfortunately you cant do it on a ramen or even a YC budget. However if you work for a feisty player and can convince them that there is money to be made in selling their back office software, you have a chance. A few years ago I almost pulled it off until the principals realized the cost of HN grade sr developers.

And most of you wont be in a position to do so, because you avoid these industries like the plague. :-)

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#64

Post by troymc »

samd wrote: post #57

Does anyone else get the feeling that the entire automotive industry could be disrupted by a company that focused on design, usability, and modern technology in their car interiors? It seems to me you could replace just about every car's dashboard with an iPad and already be light-years ahead of the industry standard. In fact the problem seems to get worse as you add more technology and money; if Top Gear is any indi…

Ford seems to be taking usability and integration with our modern "technology" (in the consumer electronics sense) quite seriously. They even have a website going into the details: http://www.ford.com/technology/

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#65

Post by recoiledsnake »

nihilocrat wrote: post #59
FuzzyDunlop wrote: post #38

One time a few years ago I was contracted to redesign a large Mercedes dealership's website. They recommended IE6 too but the main issue wasn't what the user saw when visiting the page, it was the supplier CMS used to administrate it. This was enforced by Mercedes themselves, so all dealerships had to use it. It was custom, and, this is no exaggeration, impossible to use. There was probably a 600 page manual, caked i…

This sounds like the most common reaction to users accidentally causing errors in data: lock everything down and only allow a very specific operation, and complain loudly and specifically (i.e., incomprehensibly) if they get out of line, in order to protect the data. Did someone find a new way to screw up? Add another restriction. I sometimes wonder why these interfaces are so freaking common for anything not facing…

>I sometimes wonder why these interfaces are so freaking common for anything not facing the general public.

It's simple, the choice is to either use it or find a new job. Quitting is not easy or practical to many people.

Even the general public faces such choices with atrocious bank, DMV, govt sites etc. written 10 years ago in with CGI or ASP. (and a COBOL backend).

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#66

Post by nantes »

joelthelion wrote: post #58
emilsedgh wrote: post #15

"For security reasons, the Volkswagen Group does not recommend other browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Netscape etc. as they show security gaps." This probably means they have serious security holes which could be easily triggered by other browsers.

I think it simply means that this page was written more than five years ago.

Not exactly conclusive, but in the source seems to indicate otherwise.

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#67

Post by runn1ng »

samd wrote: post #57

Does anyone else get the feeling that the entire automotive industry could be disrupted by a company that focused on design, usability, and modern technology in their car interiors? It seems to me you could replace just about every car's dashboard with an iPad and already be light-years ahead of the industry standard. In fact the problem seems to get worse as you add more technology and money; if Top Gear is any indi…

I don't understand cars, at all.

But to me, it seems car market is very different from consumer electronics. First, building a car is still a hard task, harder than putting transistors together. Second, risk of car failure is much higher than risk of computer failure.

In other words, I would be afraid to ride 120 kmph on a highway if I knew the probability of random failure is as high as on my computer. I can't just backup my life regularly.

edit: OK, I misread your post a little, but I am letting this comment here since I wrote it already

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#68

Post by Roboprog »

cnvogel wrote: post #28
rmoriz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason in Germany is mainly SAP (because of its popularity here) Their Netweaver product was build with lots of ActiveX + OS stuff that's so proprietary, that it will not work with even IE7. Of course SAP has released upgrades but companies have to pay for it or change larger parts of their ERP to be able to apply the upgrades. As ERPs are propably upgraded once per decade, this will take some time... From variou…

Working in a ~50000 employee company that shall remain nameless I can give you another datapoint from "big companies" out there: We only got IE8 (on WinXP, Win7 will not launch for another year or two) this year. And before that it was whatever IE version ships with WinXP. The alternative we can use is a Firefox that has not been updated since its rollout in 2009. And of course you are not allowed to use other than c…

Exactly. My experience at work is that we "bootleg" in other browsers to do dev work on external facing sites, but the intranet stuff really only works on Internet Exploder, and thems the breaks.

While it's laughable, I understand the driving forces behind it, and have since stopped caring, so long as nobody insists that our public sites need only work on IE 6/7/8. I can usually end that discussion with one word: iPad.

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#69

Post by botker »

samd wrote: post #57

Does anyone else get the feeling that the entire automotive industry could be disrupted by a company that focused on design, usability, and modern technology in their car interiors? It seems to me you could replace just about every car's dashboard with an iPad and already be light-years ahead of the industry standard. In fact the problem seems to get worse as you add more technology and money; if Top Gear is any indi…

Yes, the dashboard / HUD could be a sweet mobile device if only manufacturers thought of it as a computing platform.

They could ship with a package manager (or "app store", what have you), and offer an API to the car. If they allow competition amongst app makers then usability standards should naturally increase.

Of course it would be necessary for car-makers to set high minimum standards of safety in app design, and to enforce those standards strictly.

I've considered starting a car company around this principle, but the barrier to entry is daunting.

Re: The Volkswagen Group is using IE6 as standard for displaying web pages

#70

Post by rhizome »

samd wrote: post #57

Does anyone else get the feeling that the entire automotive industry could be disrupted by a company that focused on design, usability, and modern technology in their car interiors? It seems to me you could replace just about every car's dashboard with an iPad and already be light-years ahead of the industry standard. In fact the problem seems to get worse as you add more technology and money; if Top Gear is any indi…

Cars are a lagging indicator for technology in every feature that isn't specifically automotive.
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