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Internet Explorer 8 Delayed Until 2009
Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 will not be officially released until 2009. According to a blog posting on the Internet Explorer 8 development site, a release candidate of the browser will be released in the first quarter of next year, to be followed by a final release at an unspecified date. This news comes on the same day that Google is considering bundling its Chrome browser with new PCs. Will the IE delay and Google's tactics help to steer users in Chrome's direction?"
They give it away from free and still have a huge majority of the market share.
So...
1. They don't have any financial motives to make it excellent just to keep it from being left behind.
2. As long as they keep the majority in market share developers will still develop and test with it.
All the changes and features are basically keep up features with some easy to program "innovative" stuff just to keep it on the radar. If you have done any software development you need to realize it is difficult to have a clean timeline of code especially with scope that Microsoft needs to have (Works for all Systems, Business and Personal Use, Good Security, Huge Flexibility...) In general Microsoft hates saying no to its customer so they often end up creating applications that meet all the customer request but fail to do what the customers want.
This is part of the Apple popularly surge. Apple likes to say no to a lot of good features. As they realize if it is implemented the majority may suffer to make the minority a little bit happier.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I suspect that google is not serious about chrome. Specifically, google does not see chrome as a long term product. They are simply chomping at microsoft's market share by introducing another browser into the market. The more browsers that are in the market, the more important standards become (ie's biggest weakness) and the less market share ie will have. If google really wanted to see their browser as a top dog, they would cut their 85 million dollar annual firefox donation. They are not playing to win, they are playing to have MS lose. Futhermore, if IE starts to decline, live services and ms advertising will also decline proportionally. In the end, google can care less about it's chrome, its just a UI slapped onto webkit anyways. The true agenda is to get people to question their browser and try different ones. With lower IE market share, they will see bigger ad revenues. That's more money to invent random stuff with hehe. If microsoft can keep up, then they win again, by creating a better standards complaint expirience. Standards are the opposite of vendor lock-ins ;). Oh google, you must be bored.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
horrible at JavaScript, HTML and standard compliance With Firefox, Opera and Chrome why would a sane person even want to use IE? IE still trails almost every other browser in JavaScript performance, try it for yourself. http://nontroppo.org/timer/progressive_raytracer.html
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Well, nice word-games you're playing there but no, I'm not google's "product". They didn't make me.
Google's products are Gmail and Search, they created them and I am using them.
Google is using a fairly novel approach to monetize their products but I don't agree with you swapping the definition of "product" and "customer" for them.