IE 9 Beta – Minus XP
Internet Explorer has reached it’s 15th birthday. The next generation version of Microsoft’s Internet browser will be available for users to try out on September 15. That is everyone except those people still clinging to Windows XP. Because that group, Microsoft has determined, will be shut out of the latest software.
Microsoft believes that somewhere around 68% of Windows users are still running the two-generations-old version of the operating system (remember Vista?). The estimate is that many of those are corporate customers that can’t afford a large-scale upgrade (not just in software, but also in hardware). There are also a number of individuals who simply are not ready to make the transfer or don’t need to or are possibly confused with the upgrade process. Still others may still need convincing that their existing software will continue to run on Windows 7.
Many still recall hearing about how when the upgrade to Vista occurred, the printers no longer worked, even if the drivers were available. Specially designed software that ran just fine on XP, fell flat on Vista. So many are thinking that upgrade is not viable.
But now we are talking about the new version of Microsoft’s Web browser, which has been going through developers in a preview build for the last few months.
The challenge to Microsoft is clear. Internet Explorer, which was once so dominate that it handled more than 90% of the country’s Web browsing, has seen it’s market share diminish by various other browser alternatives. These include, Google chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari and Opera. One of the reasons that Internet Explorer lost it mojo was that it was technically deficient compared to others. They were faster, could handle more videos, could download faster, and had new approaches to web surfing.
But Microsoft has also been luring users back with increased functionality and a stronger relationship with Web content developers. If they weren’t listening before, they are now.
For instance IE9 will bring to the table include support for HTML5, which has been controversial, and a new Javascript engine known as “Chakra.” It is still anyone’s guess what the browser will actually look like, though, is anyone’s guess. It is assumed that Microsoft will reduce the clutter than was in IE8 and give the new browser a fresher, more robust, and simpler interface. At least that is the theory. We won’t know what it will look like for sure until the beta goes live next month for Vista and Windows 7 users.
Now if only it actually does what they claim.
Microsoft warned that IE8 would be the final version of IE that would run on XP nearly 3 years ago. This is non-news, sysadmins knew it was coming.
Being designed to run only on Vista and Windows 7 enables it to leverage the features only available on those operating systems – as an example, the direct 2d features it has to accelerate and visually enhance text rendering which is made possible thanks to DWM and the new display driver stack, as well as the protected mode thanks to UAC. Dropping support for old platforms is a natural evolution of software development, and without this software would stagnate.
I agree that it is a natural evolution of software development. The thing is though as sometimes old platforms are supported and yet at other times they are not, it is important for sites such as this one to make that knowledge more public. Therefore this is real news to some, not non-news as you said.
I believe the majority of home users who are using IE are using IE8 and only because they were offered it through Windows update (assuming they update at all). It is only going to be system administrators for businesses that would be worrying about this, as they will be the ones still on IE6, but again, they will be on IE6 because they made a decision to stick with XP beyond it’s expiry date.