Microsoft Still Chasing the Competition With IE9
webmonkey.com
webmonkey.com
"And that cuts to heart of why developers and anyone with an interest in the using the web of the future today has long since lost faith in Internet Explorer: The competition continues to deliver improvements at a pace that far outstrips Internet Explorer."
The competitor's products are better, but they were waaay better before IE8 even existed. After IE9, assumedly, they'll still be better, but by far less a distance. Google is really the only company in the world that can rival Microsoft's speed in development (when it sets its mind to it). Honestly, here's what I think happened: Microsoft missed the internet-apps thing. They sort of grew, and Microsoft didn't notice for a while. Then they exploded and Microsoft was caught off-guard with a browser the developers didn't like, and a business strategy that was out-dated. But being Microsoft, and they're not dumb guys, they started improving their browser and began to write some neat cloud software (Web Office, anyone?).
You'll notice this thinking in what they concentrate on: To Microsoft, web apps are where it's at, and javascript speed is important! It makes things run better. But if you look to web standards, you'll see Microsoft talk about "real world cases", or however they put it. They don't care about 100% compliance, they don't have time. They're playing catch-up, and are focusing on the areas that will make the most difference first. It's sort of like Startup 101. My belief is that they'll continue to improve the standards, but will devote, say, %20 of their efforts to it, until their javascript engine and css rendering layout engine is humming in tune with V8 and Sunspider.
Maybe afterwards they'll decide to go with full-standards compliance, one would have to look at the development cost vs. the predicted returns, but it wouldn't be a terrible idea, really, to woo developers over from other platforms: "Yeah, our performance is the same, and we're at 100%. You can develop for us and on us with no problems, assuming the competitors follow the standards like us".
But that's probably wishful thinking.
I'm curious -- what MS product specifically are you thinking of here?
I think Apple at a minimum has consistently out-executed Microsoft. Nintendo, VMWare, and Facebook also all come to mind (along with any other small company that MS acquired).
The most interesting things from MS I've heard about recently are Project Natal, Pivot, and Azure.
Are you thinking of something in particular?
Don't mistake speed of releases or popularity or innovation for the speed of development. Nintendo is a particularly poor example, I think, since I'm currently working with their tools... they are last-decade. I'm not even talking about the Wii's capabilities (which are Gamecube-era), I'm talking about their software: IDEs, compilers, etc. They struck gold with the Wii, but Microsoft went from (No Console) -> XBox360 within... like, 5 years? Nintendo's been playing this game for 25+ years, and without the unmitigated success of the Wii their console division would be bankrupt now (seriously!)
Microsoft's ability to develop (notably, but not limited to) software is unparalleled save for Google. Innovation, iteration, or popularization are all different matters.
But they didn't build that from scratch, they bought the original Mosaic codebase.
The real problem is that web standards of the past (made by W3C) were overly complicated and not practical, so the browser developers had to make engineering trade-offs to implement a subset of them. So in practical sense there is no such thing as standard compliance, and this is not something Microsoft can go with.
Consider: Microsoft could potentially compete in this arena. They have MinWin now. They could, if they chose, build something roughly equivalent to Chrome OS. However, they have a problem. Even IE 9 is behind the competition. In its current incarnation, it is slower than the currently available versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, in everything except perhaps graphics rendering, a difference hardly noticeable. As TA notes, it is still playing catchup on standards. Microsoft boasts an Acid3 score of 32/100, and actually believes that Acid3 is to blame.
So - what happens when ChromeOS provides a viable alternative to those who are quite happy to live on the Web, use Microsoft Office Online or Google Docs, etc.? Whatever is keeping them in Windows?
As I see it, Microsoft has only one alternative: Buckle down and bring IE 9 into the HTML5/CSS3 fold. Pour their reputed brilliance into dramatically improving their Javascript engine. THEN, perhaps, with MinWin / IE9, they could go head-to-head with Chrome OS.
But you know what? Say they succeed, and successfully provide a viable alternative to ChromeOS. Google still wins. Why? Because every browser on the market is, finally, standards compliant, and a suitable canvas for all the Web App goodness that Google would like to market to everyone in the world.
Can we get a quote on that one ? I saw on PDC (it was broadcasted live ) the presenter saying that IE9 displayed was just their most recent build and that it will get better. Nothing about Acid3 being to blame.
Some standards tests – like Acid3 – have become widely used as shorthand for standards compliance, even with some shortcomings.
I read this, at the time, as a somewhat whiny "if Acid 3 was a better test, we'd be able to pass it".
As for the "boasting", they included a screen shot. And to be honest, this score is so low, I didn't even remember what a 32/100 Acid3 result looked like, so the screenshot was useful.
That's not necessarily true. It could be that the current version(s) of IE are good enough for what most users need, or at least that the cost of changing browsers exceeds the benefit. If that's true, then the level of performance that IE provides will prevail, and the recent standards and performance achievements of other platforms will just be sales talking points.
HTML 5, etc., does not represent user demands (at least not directly). It represents what developers want to be able to do. If our users refuse to provide the requirements for those developers' apps to run, then it's going to be the developers who have to change.
(I make no judgments about the merits of this, just observing where the balance of power lies.)
I don't think I can stress how important that "much easier" is.
Full HTML5 support makes the Windows platform as a whole less important (Note: I did not say unimportant). When only the web matters you can run OS X or Chrome OS or Linux and get "the same web". Of course they'd love to stall that.
I often feel as though we're cramming certain applications through the filter of HTML while we wait for native apps to catch up. Google Docs is the canonical example for me.
Here's what I like about Google Docs, other than being free:
- Docs are stored in the cloud, not tied to one machine
- Collaboration
- Rapid introduction of new features
At some point, the web app vs. desktop app argument becomes little more than a question of whether the browser's Chrome is wrapped around it.
tl;dr: always available broadband is the real revolution.
Worth addressing separately is the idea that MS is attempting to sabotage web apps by dragging its feet on updating Trident. I hear this a lot.
I'm an Occam's Razor kind of guy. There's myriad reasons to explain this, all of which are less cloak-and-dagger. Here's a few:
- IE has a huge userbase, which is slow to upgrade, and IE is deeply integrated with Windows. This means tons of inertia. Big companies move slowly.
- They won't make any more money by implementing HTML5, XHTML, CSS3, or whatever the currently en vogue standard is, and it would cost a ton of money.
- Their customers don't give a shit (extension of the previous point). Those who do are using another browser already.
- What web app has put a meaningful dent in Microsoft's revenue?
Good discussion, thanks.
Install/Update/Uninstall is no longer a good metaphor. Something like iPhone App Store (but not managed by Apple like it is now) or Ubuntu/Debian-esque package management might be the future.