Browser wars could improve productivity, but the enterprise still loves IE6

I have worked with dozens of I.T. groups, and their behavior is startlingly consistent: they're not about to risk changing anything. And it's for a simple reason: they are measured on Not F*cking Things Up. They are not about to have everything fall apart on their watch, because they honestly believe they will not have a job.

Realistically, I think the only way business I.T. will ever change, is for the metrics to change. Rather than the stupid and threatening measure of "don't screw up, ever, or else" and these 99.999999999% uptime numbers, I.T. must be guided under a new principle: "evolve constantly, at a reasonable pace, taking acceptable risks".

What's frustrating to me is that they "freeze", wanting to delay change as long as possible, not appreciating the irony that a snowball is being created. If they wait 5 years to upgrade a browser instead of 1 or 2, the cost of a mistake is far higher. If they refuse to allow beta software, ever, they are losing lead time on detecting possible issues. The list goes on.

I'm a web developer who once worked as a low-level IT guy and I'm sorry but the excuses in the ZD comments just aren't flying with me.

First of all, any app that breaks in everything but IE 6 was written by somebody who is incompetent. Any business whose success hinges on such an app was equally incompetent in choosing it.

And let me make this very clear. We write our apps for modern browsers first and then fix the various flukes and oversights that have made IE 6 such a royal pain to deal with last and we are doing so in even quicker and dirtier ways the longer it drags on. I work at a major retailer that was probably also late in upgrading from IE 6 and even our managers are sick of hearing about what we can't do because IE 6 has market share and have stopped caring if people get an obviously subpar or uglier experience on that ridiculous browser if it shaves a week or two off of development.

And what, you're worried about security? That's why you're sticking it out with IE 6 and an ancient version of Outlook? Please.

Any IT department that's still on IE 6 is being run by somebody who was probably more attracted to IT for the favorable pay to training ratio and who has too little faith in their abilities and the abilities of the people they're responsible for to upgrade a freaking browser for crying out loud.

I don't care about how big your networks are. I don't care about your ridiculous IE 6-only apps that you should have been searching for alternatives to six months after IE 7 came out and you still didn't get updates from the "developers" (hacks with a GUI IDE of some sort more likely). If you're still on IE 6 you're not really interested in information technology, you don't know what you're doing and it's no surprise that management has started favoring cheap labor from overseas over homegrown incompetence. It's not like you're any better at communicating or have fewer excuses than some guy they picked up off the street in India anyway.

Cheap shot? Sure it is but how come nobody is coming after my job? It's not like JavaScript syntax is hard or anything right? If IT professionals were doing what they ought to be doing, which is continually honing their skills and improving the productivity of businesses rather than holding them back for fear of revealing their own incompetence they'd be seen as an asset rather than a necessary evil and an expense.

If your business is still on IE 6, whoever is responsible doesn't deserve their job as far as I'm concerned.