I disagree. I think he mentions a really valid point. Getting users to upgrade from IE6 is good thing, but it's even better to upgrade to Firefox or Chrome instead of IE8.
I meant he raises a good point on whether (from a web developer's perspective) you should use this Microsoft banner at all.
Exactly.
It's stupid for Microsoft, but everyone else would benefit from no longer having to cope with Internet Explorer. Heck. Even Microsoft would stop spending money developing their browsers and that would certainly improve their bottom line (much like abandoning MeeGo will improve Nokia's). As it is, Microsoft does whatever benefits them, regardless of how much it does hurt everybody else.
>Heck. Even Microsoft would stop spending money developing their browsers and that would certainly improve their bottom line
Are you just anti-Microsoft trolling? This doesn't follow any kind of logic. "They would sure benefit from having millions of users not use their Web browser." What?
If I gave them Firefox, they'll have the attitude of "I want the old one back!". For chrome however, they already use Google, so they're happy using "Google" to view other pages. And while I worry a little about Possibly accidentally creating a Google = the Internet opinion in them, transparent automatic updates prevent this having consequences like the IE = the Internet attitude others have.
Well... At least they have a "don't be evil" in their corporate values. ;-)
And just because it's the logical thing for them to do, it doesn't mean it's a good idea for our industry.
The parent said that he didn't think it was best for our industry, but that it wouldn't be in Microsoft's best interest to do it.
Does Microsoft believe it's in the industry's best interest to recommend other browsers? I doubt it. My guess is that they still believe in their own vision of the future and want to keep their customers so they have a chance to build it.