Winextra – Damn right Microsoft should kill off Internet Explorer

ie6_dead

I have been a strong proponent for sometime now of Microsoft kicking Internet Explorer to the curb and rebooting their browser franchise with something new, better – something not Internet Explorer.

So it’s nice to see that I am not alone in this suggestion if Jason Cross’ post at PC World is any indication.

Jason provides six main reasons why he believes Microsoft would go down this road which I have slimmed down to bullet points (so make sure to read his original post)

Drop the Internet Explorer name

Redesign the interface from scratch

Pile on the useful new features

Develop a new, robust, easy-to-develop-for add-on interface

Forget about backward compatibility

You can’t be too fast or too light

I definitely agree in general with much of what Jason writes but especially when it comes to the Add-Ons and the backward compatibility. I realize that much of Microsoft’s business is in the corporate world where many companies are still using IE6 because apps on their own Intranets are coded for it. To switch browsers – even to newer versions of IE – means a big cost to companies.

However Internet Explorer is becoming nothing but an albatross around Microsoft’s neck. Sooner or later these companies are going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade their systems to handle newer browsers so why not give them something really worth trading up for.

Internet Explorer is the perfect example of a product whose time has come and gone. It needs to be replaced.