Internet Explorer 9 launches tonight, we've got your early look

Who are you including in that category apart from Apple? Compatibility with 30-year-old OS features is often considered a worthwhile goal among current UNIX descendants.

> I see very few people complaining that Apple killed the PowerPC line, and XP far predates that.

Is WinXP compatible with x86 and x86-64? Is Win7 not compatible with those? I don't see what point you're making by mentioning CPU architectures. And the 'universal binary' made this switch largely transparent to owners of either CPU.

> many people hold the misapprehension that XP is 'good enough' in some sense

Leaving aside the accuracy of this, surely if it is a misapprehension then it should cause problems only for those people. Instead Microsoft have made it clear that it's a problem for their own profit growth and that those users need to be coerced into upgrading.

But even that's being done in a half-assed way that makes it more of a problem for web developers. Which other Microsoft titles are being developed to be XP-incompatible? Certainly not Office 2010. Aside: backwards compatibility was largely maintained under Mac OS Classic from 1984 to 2001. The break, coming with OS X, was necessary, not contrived.

On XP, Microsoft could add tons of value by supporting a solid IE9 update. This is where browser improvements are truly needed. Let that be where their engineering talent goes.

You're right that forward-looking IT groups are already well aware of how to deploy a modern browser. It's the other companies I'm wondering about.

Consider what would happen if Microsoft announced these plans, and basically said that in 6 months they would start deploying IE9 by default on XP "for security" (which would basically be legitimate). Once both IT managers and contractors alike can see Microsoft's plans, the writing would be on the wall, like a mini-Y2K; there would be plenty of people you could call to have your broken IE6-only web apps updated, probably enough to keep the prices reasonably low. Obviously I'm speculating on that, but my point is that Microsoft is in the best position to set this ball rolling. A lot of the problem could solve itself. Putting IE9 on another OS isn't really going to tempt anyone using these ancient PCs.

It's true in some sense. Vista really made Windows users question further upgrades. I personally couldn't wait to move from Windows 3.1 to 95, 98 to 2000, 2000 to XP. Super excited for these upgrades. I had no such enthusiasm for Vista after seeing initial reports and usability findings. Thankfully Windows 7 is far superior to Vista and XP and definitely a much more inviting experience.

Sometimes you don't just cut the cord, you evolve the old and the new.