Slashdot Mirror
Corporate IT Just Won't Let IE6 Die
alphadogg writes "Security experts, industry analysts, and even Microsoft recommend that IT departments upgrade Internet Explorer 6, yet new research shows that while there may have recently been a mock funeral for the aging browser, IE6 is still around and doing well, especially during standard business hours." The article says that they are seeing 6-13% peaking during business hours. Around here we see less than 1.5% IE6, but since we see only 10% IE in general, I imagine we're just lucky.
but I'm working on it! The only way to get Corporate/Management off of IE6 is to fix any web apps you have in your organization that won't work on anything but that.
We're using the security hole in IE 6 and 7 where you can execute code with IE's image parser.
Our customer comes to our office for a meeting where he demands IE 6 & 7 support. We tell him to open his laptop and go to google.com. When downloading the google logo image we have configured our router to redirect to our infected image file.
Then we tell our customer to reboot. After the reboot we tell him to check his mail inbox in outlook and then tell us what the new mail he has says.
He gets really suprised when he sees his login password in clear text. And from that moment IE8 is a minimum requirement.
This works on every customer we have tried it on, they take it seriously when they see the security threat in action. Most people think anti-virus and firewalls protects them. Our job is to tell them that updated software also protects them, and we've failed bigtime when it comes to that.
Go poke the CIO instead. That's where the buck stops.
An IT department can make all the technical cases it want to. However, until the equation of $$$StandStill is less than $$$Moveforward, $$$StandStill is where you'll be.
And no, the CIO is almost never a technical weenie. It's just another seat on the board, with fat shareholder priviledges.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
I realize this probably wasn't your fault in the first place, but it *is* your company's own fault. Eventually, Microsoft *will* stop supporting IE6 (XP is supposed to go out of support in a few years, and there's no IE6 for Vista or 7). Those millions of dollars *will* have to be spent. Why not start working on it now and spread the pain out. All of this "but it will cost us million of dollars to make our stuff work like it should have in the first place!" whinging by various corporate managers kind of ridiculous. You (not you personally, but generically "you IT managers") know they won't support this stuff forever, you could fix this over time and spend very little quarter by quarter, but you'd rather cry about the million of dollars it will cost all at once when you eventually HAVE to deal with it.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Oh but you forget the joys of virtualization. IE6 can live forever in a VM. Enterprises can go for the next 20 years forcing their workers to use something that barely worked and was horrible even when the tech was current. I know there are people out there virtualizing Netware and NT4 which I fully expect to be doing some critical operations inside a VM like controlling machinery or whatever 100 years from now. I doesn't have to die, even though it probably should die.
Call in a consulting team, get a quote for reworking it. Doesnt that neatly solve the problem?
Now presenting: The Bean Counter - A one-act play.
You: "This code is a mess! It was written by a bunch of low-grade college kids for cheap and is impossible to maintain! We need to call in a consulting team to get a quote for-"
(in a flurry of papers, a tweed-suited bean counter appears, apparently from a pocket dimension, as there is no visual evidence to suggest where he came from, nor are there any obvious entrances to where he is standing now. You don't even recall him ever working in the company before; he just IS)
Bean Counter: "NO! We need to save money over that plan! The money must be saved! SAVE IT! It's endangered!"
You: "But... save money over what?"
Bean Counter: (eyes grow wide) "MONEY! You save MONEY!!! Now look, we can easily solve this problem by hiring a bunch of low-grade college kids for cheap. That'll save us all sorts of money. Do this now."
You: "But that's what got us in this mess in the first place! We can't-"
Bean Counter: "Listen, you young punk, I know how money works. You don't. I've already gone over all the specs, and these college kids can write the same amount of codes for much less per-code than some fancy-schmansy overpriced professional. See this chart? It proves it."
You: "That's not how code works! There's quality concerns that-"
Bean Counter: (now furious) "DO YOU SEE THE CHART? LOOK AT THE CHART! THE CHART! THE CHART! It CLEARLY shows that the college kids can write an average of 650 lines of code more than your stupid 'trained professionals' per every dollar spent. That's called 'economical', you miserable snot! Are you TRYING to run this company into the ground?"
You: "Do you even understand the basic economics of programming at all?"
Bean Counter: "No! I don't waste my precious time and money with your worthless hobbies! I understand MONEY. Now shut up and do whatever it is you're paid to do, I've already got your boss putting MY plan in motion."
(end scene)
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.