Is IE9 Doomed Before It's Even Released?

[Andy Dixon]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.conceivablytech.com/3001/products/has-microsoft-just-sabotaged-ie9/' target='_blank'>http://www.conceivablytech.com/3001...-sabotaged-ie9/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"It may be Microsoft's biggest blunder since the brown Zune. Only Microsoft can shoot itself in the foot in such a silly way and it leaves us scratching our heads: What exactly are they thinking? IE9 will not run on Windows XP, has problems on Vista and now we learn that it will only run on Windows 7 with SP1 installed."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/wpt/auto/1285443721.usr11334.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>This is an interesting move by Microsoft if they do release IE9 with such strict criteria.&nbsp; With so many browsers out there, with so many different versions of Windows, not to mention other operating systems, can Microsoft really expect to get a large market share if it's latest version only works&nbsp;on Win 7 SP1?&nbsp; I think this could be a bad move and may well cost Microsoft the browser war.&nbsp; I see it as Microsoft trying to encourage people to upgrade if they want to use the new version, but surely they must know, people upgrade because they want to and because something is worth upgrading for, not because they are coerced.&nbsp; I have switched products many times because an app will only work on certain versions of software, and I suspect many people out there will feel the same way about this.</p>

[Joel Crane]

After doing some light web dev, I was thrilled to hear of the new features in IE9, but then saddened to hear that there would be no Windows XP support. The truth is, most of the people running IE are not tech-savvy, and thus using Windows XP. Despite it's age, XP is still pretty common.

I didn't think the brown zune was that bad.

[djdj]

I don't see lack of XP support as a major issue. Computers running XP probably won't last much longer. Windows 7 is so much better anyway.

The original story that SP1 is required is erroneous. If IE9 is installed on a computer running SP1 (coming 1H next year) it won't require a reboot. If IE9 is installed running Win7 RTM, it will install some additional modules so it can work, and this requires a reboot.

I don't think IE9 is doomed. I have the beta installed on one of my computers and it is actually quite nice and very fast. It isn't my primary browser, but plenty of people will use it.

[cweeks]

This may not be as dumb as it first appears. Quite a few large organizations (think corporations, and most importantly, *schools*) skipped the Vista revolution and stuck to XP. That was not a bad move on their part, as a *lot* of software they depend on is browser-based, and some of the browsers did not function properly under Vista for those applications. Java was the main culprit behind this, but that's another issue. By the way, I can think of one major application that will not work with Firefox without *major* tweaking, so sticking with IE is the easier option for most of the school IT departments.

Along comes Windows 7 and now these organizations are seriously looking to upgrade their XP boxes, but are still waiting to see what happens with IE, as their legacy browser-based apps are too expensive to upgrade. IF IE 9 works with these apps, then it is in Microsoft's best interest to tie it to Win7 to encourage these companies and schools to upgrade.

Do individual consumers care about all this? No, but they also really don't care about their browser as long as it works. This decision simply does not affect them very much as the average consumer will just stick with what they know until the buy a new box.