IE The Great Microsoft Blunder?

JordanL writes "Hot on the heels of the beta rollouts of IE 7, comes an editorial from John Dvorak declaring IE the biggest mistake Microsoft has ever made. From the article: 'All the work that has to go into keeping the browser afloat is time that could have been better spent on making Vista work as first advertised [...] If you were to put together a comprehensive profit-and-loss statement for IE, there would be a zero in the profits column and billions in the losses column--billions.'"

Comments

Microsofts biggest blunder?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

As usual, Dvorak is on crack.

I'm not sure what he means by biggest, but microsoft's stupidist blunder was Bob and its most expensive blunder was the Cairo project (Cairo was later renamed and one of its most important element, OFS, is still nowhere in sight).

Internet exporer was not so much of a blunder as an expensive way to kill off Netscape (they were a much bigger threat then Dvorak makes out.

(the OT part) Still, at least Microsoft Bob was not a completely wasted effort - after all, you still have Rover the retriever to help you with searching in XP - and we all know that was worth waiting 10 years for...

Re:Microsofts biggest blunder?

[jambarama]

From my blog: http://jambarama.blogspot.com/2006/03/how-microsof t-got-ie-to-be-de-facto.html

Why did Microsoft care what browser people used?
Operating systems can be replaced by higher level operating systems. BIOS stood for (used to, they changed it in the 90s) basic integrated operating system. BIOS was a full on (but limited) OS. Microsoft figured out how to use BIOS to boot DOS, a higher level OS. Later they figured out how to get DOS to boot Windows. Thus they knew operating systems could be replaced, they'd done it: BIOS > DOS > Windows (until they jettisoned DOS in 2000).

They were afraid the internet was going to do this again. And Netscape would be basically an OS on top of Windows. The problem was this: if everyone develops for Netscape, not for Windows, then Windows wouldn't matter (just like who makes your BIOS doesn't matter now). Microsoft was terrified that Windows would get built over. Then they couldn't charge much for Windows (because it wouldn't be that important). So they did their darndest to kill Netscape and force IE on everyone else.

Getting rid of the Apple Problem
Macintosh threatened to throw a wrench in their plans. Even if Apple went out of business, someone would buy it up and still offer Macs. Because there was another viable platform, many early developers felt they should work for compatibility with both Mac and Windows. There was no IE for Macintosh and even if there had been, Microsoft needed a way to get Mac users to use it. If IE wasn't default for all major platforms, IE wouldn't be the standard, it would be a standard.*

Luck was on Microsft's side. They had been killing Apple's revenue for sometime and Apple was willing to partner with anyone to survive. For Microsoft it was worth $150 million to make IE the de facto standard that it remains to this day. For Apple is was worth accepting IE to survive to try and fight again.

So what about Netscape?
Tying means using one product to sell another. Tying is like selling a copier and forcing (contractually or with technology) the consumer to get the copier serviced by you as well. This example is an actual case - Kodak did this. Tying is not bundling (for example selling Office rather than Excel or Powerpoint alone. Bundling is fine). Tying is per se illegal - if you are found to be tying, you are wrong, no debate - bundling is fine.

I don't think there was any doubt in Microsoft's mind that bolting IE to the OS was "tying." The problem for Microsoft was that permanently bolting IE to Windows (and making it default) was the only way to unseat the current king of the internet, Netscape. It worked. And then they got slapped with an anti-trust suit for guess what... tying.

During the trial a Princeton computer scientist got the Windows code via a court order and found that by removing two lines of code (from the source of Win98) you could get rid of IE. So Netscape presented this in court. Microsoft's rebuttal was a video, showing that by removing these two lines of code Windows crashed. When the prosecutors looked into this they found this was two different videos spliced together (thanks Ballmer). Guess what?

They were found guilty. Judge Penfield Jackson was furious. He'd been annoyed by Bill Gates' irritated deposition. Gates had been ornery and not very helpful, but this put Jackson over the top. So Jackson wrote a scathing decision and Microsoft was supposed to be split into three companies. Because this decision was so harsh when the change of administration came, they refused to enforce it.

So Microsoft won. They got IE to be the standard everyone uses when developing for the web and no penalties for it (if you don't think IE is the de facto standard, make your site incompatible with IE and, unless it is slashdot, don't expect to get much return traffic). Microsoft now has new pressure again - from alternate web browsers and from alternate operating systems. But there is a new savior on the horizon for them - trusted computing. If they succeed with the vendor lock-in trusted computing allows they'll never go out of business.

Why not make it the ultimate test of .NET?

[MikeRT]

I don't understand why Microsoft doesn't just rewrite Internet Explorer in .NET. They can leave the existing rendering engine behind as a legacy component and work on a new IE that can take advantage of .NET's security mechanisms. Not only would it be a good excuse for a clean break, but it would also give them a chance to show off what .NET can do for desktop apps.

You need evil to have good?

[WndrBr3d]

I think credit should be given to IE and Microsoft for inspiring the next generation of browsers. I mean, if it weren't for Internet Explorer setting the bar in browser features and functionality, we wouldn't have such a great open source push for a great new browser platform such as Firefox or Opera.

Imagine if Microsoft's only competition was Netscape :-(

Re:Definitely not 0 profit...

[Karl Cocknozzle]

From the tagging:

troll, dvorak (ie stupid idiot)

Is anybody else noticing how many aricles are being tagged "troll"? Won't make for a very good indexing mechanism is every third article has the same keyword...

Re:Nobody can resist propagating FUD.

[Tumbleweed]

What are their UI people smoking? Or did they hire some Opera UI people?

Opera is the most customisable interface I've ever encountered, and not just browsers.

Fair play. I was referring more to the IE7 interface compared with the goofy default layout of Opera's UI. You're very correct in how customizable Opera's UI is - although it's often EXTREMELY obfuscated as to how to customize many things. Nevertheless, what you want to customize can almost always be done in Opera, though it'll take some requests for help in the forums.

Not so with IE7, as far as I can tell. I can add, remove, and rearrange stuff on the toolbar, but I can't move the toolbar into different locations, as I could with previous versions of IE.

I'm hoping this isn't the final UI form. If it is, then it's taken several large steps backwards in UI customizability from previous versions of IE.

It's not like it's a big deal to me, since even with all its nifty new features (well, new to IE), I'll still be using Firefox, but the ClearType issue fucking up font display is going to mess with the usability of some of the sites I've designed, which is really irritating.

As far as Opera, I'm eagerly awaiting the final release of 9. I'm hoping I can customize it enough to use it as my main email client, as I freaking hate Thunderbird (and Outlook and Outlook Express, and, and, and...) I'd like the Hugin and Munin scripts updated for version 9.

Re:the new IE7 Beta 2

[diegocgteleline.es]

What's with eliminating the standard menus that every other Windows program uses?

You can enable them!. Look here!. The menu is placed between the address bar and the tab bar. The tab and the address bar are both related with the page you're viewing, the menu is not. It's probably the worst place to put such menu: you want to keep such elements in the same place. But hey, this is microsoft - some reviewer will argue that it has sense.

The UI of IE7 was designed very carefully. They just don't know to do it right. Look at the the latest paul thurrot's vista review:

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_5 342_rev5_02.jpg
http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_5 342_rev5_08.jpg
(Try to guess which is the active window)

http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/vista_5 342_rev5_01.jpg
("File operations"! great!)

I've enought problems to make people understand XP (why the extension->program associations are placed under "carpet options"???? Why i need to look at the taskwork's properties to delete the list of recently opened files in the start menu??? Why some visual effects are on the "my pc->properties" window, others in the display's properties and some duplicated in both?? Oh, and wait: in IE7 beta 2 you configure cd-auto-startup in IE's advanced properties). I can't wait for vista, it looks like they'd be trying to be better than mac os x but they keep falling in the second-system syndrome. It's so bad when it comes to usability that is laughable - most of the people knows windows just because they're taugh the basic operations in the school.

Look at how many XP/office training courses are in your city. It's so fucking bad that people can make money with it.

Re:Definitely not 0 profit...

[drinkypoo]

Dvorak doesn't understand business.

Marketoïds do not understand the *REAL* universe, the one one that's governed by physical laws and logic.

See, that's where you're an idiot. (I was going to just say wrong, but it doesn't express how I feel very well.) Marketing is all about logic. One of the key datums in marketing is that people make decisions based on emotion, not on logic. Oh sure, some people develop a logical system for evaluating purchases and then stick to it zealously, which allows them to make logical decisions, but most people vote for the better-looking candidate and buy the car that looks fast, regardless of actual suitability.

Marketing exists in the really real world, not your slashdot fantasy world. Actually, it exists here too, if you don't have adblock or something. And it wouldn't exist here if it didn't work to some degree.

Logic dictates that Microsoft is getting something out of maintaining IE.

P.S. I work in a marketing department but I'm a longtime and very dedicated computer geek. Look at the number of /. posts I've made if you don't believe me :P