My Thoughts on Internet Explorer 7
I don't post much on technology these days, it seems, but this particular release is noteworthy. Microsoft has finally released an update to its market dominating web browser, Internet Explorer. To which I have one simply reply:
It's about damn time!
Sorry Microsoft, you've lost the browser war, you just don't know it yet.
Don't get me wrong, IE7 is a fine release and a much needed update to the browser. The biggest addition, in my opinion, is the tabbed browsing experience. There are many other features they've added, like a leaner interface, phishing filter, etc. But, to be perfectly honest, this release at best is playing catch up, feature-wise, with the rest of the browsers on the market. There is nothing new or innovative in here. Of course, that's typical Microsoft, they don't really innovate much. Maybe Ray Ozzie will change some of that mentality.
Ironically, the one thing that could save Microsoft's dominance in this space is what gave them such resounding success in the mid 90's in the server OS space: the developers.
NT and Novell were in a fiercely heated competition in the mid 90's to win the server OS market, both application and file/print. Novell stumbled trying to get their R4 product out the door, and they all but snubbed the developer community prior to release by dragging their heels on releasing their API's. That opening, and Microsoft's near evangelical approach to courting the developer community for NT4 led to a crushing defeat for Novell and the major dominance of NT in the server operating space for many years to come.
That same developer community approach is what opened the door for folks at Mozilla. With the relase of Firefox, a whole new world opened in the web browser competition. Gone was the monolithic fights between Netscape and IE. In its place, the champion of open source development appeared and, along with Mozilla, an army of developers were engaged to take on the IE juggernaut. And frankly, they're winning, albeit slowly. September 2006 statistics show IE declining from 76% to 62% for the market (over the previous 12 months), while Firefox has steadily gained during the same period, climing a little over 9% to 27%.
Not surprisingly, Firefox has had two feature releases in the past 18 months, whereas IE had one in the past 4 years. As fast as web trends change today, incredibly slow release cycles will not help a company's place in the market.
Perhaps Microsoft is largely conceding the browser space, I really don't know if they view it in those terms. In the end, IE7 is a nice release, but a severe case of too little, way too late in my opinion.
On a related note, I thought I'd share an update to the extensions that I currently use with Firefox.
Ad Block - Allows you to selectively filter ads from web pages that you frequent. If they come up with a way to block interstitial ads, that would make me very happy.
Colorful Tabs - Allows you to easily distinguish tabs. Novel, but not critical.
ForecastFox - Easy to use weather notification add-on.
Google Browser Sync - Best Add-on in recent memory. Lets me sync my bookmarks with any PC that has the plug in.
Google Notebook - Lets me jot down notes while I'm researching topics.
IE Tab - Lets me render a page using the IE interface if it doesn't behave in the Mozilla rendering engine.
PDF Download - Keeps PDF's from gumming up my browser.
If you have other cool add-ons that you use, feel free to share :)
Btw, Firefox 2 is due to go gold in a matter of days...
Doc
It's about damn time!
Sorry Microsoft, you've lost the browser war, you just don't know it yet.
Don't get me wrong, IE7 is a fine release and a much needed update to the browser. The biggest addition, in my opinion, is the tabbed browsing experience. There are many other features they've added, like a leaner interface, phishing filter, etc. But, to be perfectly honest, this release at best is playing catch up, feature-wise, with the rest of the browsers on the market. There is nothing new or innovative in here. Of course, that's typical Microsoft, they don't really innovate much. Maybe Ray Ozzie will change some of that mentality.
Ironically, the one thing that could save Microsoft's dominance in this space is what gave them such resounding success in the mid 90's in the server OS space: the developers.
NT and Novell were in a fiercely heated competition in the mid 90's to win the server OS market, both application and file/print. Novell stumbled trying to get their R4 product out the door, and they all but snubbed the developer community prior to release by dragging their heels on releasing their API's. That opening, and Microsoft's near evangelical approach to courting the developer community for NT4 led to a crushing defeat for Novell and the major dominance of NT in the server operating space for many years to come.
That same developer community approach is what opened the door for folks at Mozilla. With the relase of Firefox, a whole new world opened in the web browser competition. Gone was the monolithic fights between Netscape and IE. In its place, the champion of open source development appeared and, along with Mozilla, an army of developers were engaged to take on the IE juggernaut. And frankly, they're winning, albeit slowly. September 2006 statistics show IE declining from 76% to 62% for the market (over the previous 12 months), while Firefox has steadily gained during the same period, climing a little over 9% to 27%.
Not surprisingly, Firefox has had two feature releases in the past 18 months, whereas IE had one in the past 4 years. As fast as web trends change today, incredibly slow release cycles will not help a company's place in the market.
Perhaps Microsoft is largely conceding the browser space, I really don't know if they view it in those terms. In the end, IE7 is a nice release, but a severe case of too little, way too late in my opinion.
On a related note, I thought I'd share an update to the extensions that I currently use with Firefox.
Ad Block - Allows you to selectively filter ads from web pages that you frequent. If they come up with a way to block interstitial ads, that would make me very happy.
Colorful Tabs - Allows you to easily distinguish tabs. Novel, but not critical.
ForecastFox - Easy to use weather notification add-on.
Google Browser Sync - Best Add-on in recent memory. Lets me sync my bookmarks with any PC that has the plug in.
Google Notebook - Lets me jot down notes while I'm researching topics.
IE Tab - Lets me render a page using the IE interface if it doesn't behave in the Mozilla rendering engine.
PDF Download - Keeps PDF's from gumming up my browser.
If you have other cool add-ons that you use, feel free to share :)
Btw, Firefox 2 is due to go gold in a matter of days...
Doc