Microsoft's commitment is to Microsoft, not the Web

With every new Internet explorer release, Microsoft makes many statements concerning their 'commitment to the web'. It's not true. While reading a TechCrunch story, the computer program that everyone refers to as 'Internet Explorer' or 'IE' iswas called Microsoft Internet Explorer. That's fine: it's a bit long-winded, but it's fine to put the name of the company that makes it in the name of the software.

But -- here's the interesting part -- IE has been renamed 'Windows Internet Explorer'. This -- unsurprisingly -- more accurately reflects Microsoft's commitment to themselves, not the web at large. IE runs only on windows, whereas every other major browser runs on at least two operating systems: Opera, Firefox, and Chrome run on many, and even the usually-xenophobic Apple has made Safari run on Windows. But if you use IE you're....stuck running windows. Microsoft might not see that as a problem. But lots of other people do. I prefer to use the same browser(s) regardless of which OS I am sitting behind so that the interface is consistent. I can't do that with IE, so I don't use IE. Case closed.

But that's only part one of my rant. Microsoft is once again promising the moon for the next release of IE. Internet Explorer 5.x didn't support CSS in any meaningful manner. Thankfully it died a quick death after the release of versions 6 and 7. For web developers, the same could not be said of version 6, which is still hobbling along despite already being EOL'd.

At this point in time I feel that it's important to recall other -- similar -- promises they've made in the past. IE 7 would support CSS, they said. I think a Register article from 2008 sums it up best::

Microsoft has a long-standing tradition of saying the right things about standards, but shipping non-standard products.

Or put another way:

Microsoft software often looks best before it's released