IT Bytes

I read a tongue-in-cheek comment today about how companies should charge Microsoft to port their IE6 only sites to standards (well IE8). The important problem is more about companies that have some critical (or at least important) bit of web based software that only works with and IE6 client. This is a major problem for web development as you’re typically tied into weak link. So what do you do? Well Microsoft won’t let you run the different versions of the browser side-by-side so you have to install a different browser. Well understandably companies don’t want to do that, be it they don’t wish lots of browsers on the client machine or they just don’t want to confuse their users. No matter how silly an excuse I think that is, the fact remains they want only one browser installed. My belief is that it is impractical to believe that companies will move away from IE6 unless either blackmailed by withdrawing support or they’re offered a single browser alternative. For me the concepts behind Chromes IE6 support is good. If IE9 was to include the browser rendering portion of IE6 then IE9 would be able to go into a special mode that would behave 100% like IE6 for pages that require it. Every other page would be sprinkled with IE9 lovel hearts, well something like that. So what’s it to be Microsoft, the hammer, complete ignorance or maybe a viable alternative?