A Browser for All Windows Customers: it’s about and, not or

guest · Jun 28, 2011

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/...-windows-customers-it-s-about-and-not-or.aspx

The topic of what some customers need from a browser saw a lot of attention in headlines (e.g. Mozilla to enterprise customers: "Drop dead") last week. Both Google employees and Mozilla community members alike (link) explained that to support consumers, their browsers cannot fulfill the needs of large organizations. At Microsoft, we believe that all Windows customers should have a great browsing experience, whether they stay at home, go to school, or work in a large organization with managed IT resources. Because all these groups of Windows customers are important to Microsoft, we want to offer our point of view and describe our approach.

Making the Web better for large organizations (with managed IT) is just as important as making the Web better for consumers and developers. People who have read Built to Last will recognize the false choice that others are making and the “Tyranny of the OR” they’re embracing: they can only support consumers OR enterprises, but not both. As Collins and Porras wrote:

[Visionary companies] do not oppress themselves with what we call the “Tyranny of the OR”–the rational view that cannot easily accept paradox; that cannot live with two seemingly contradictory forces or ideas at the same time. The “Tyranny of the OR” pushes people to believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both.

Large organizations provide healthcare (like Landstinget i Östergötland) and online learning systems (like Blackboard Inc.) and government services (like the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the Washington State Department of Licensing) as well as many other important services on the Web. Just as some individuals have unique needs, for example with assistive technologies, some large organizations have unique needs as well.

To meet those needs, we ship updates to five versions of IE across seven operating systems with 14 Service Pack variations to customers in 96 languages worldwide every eight weeks. We do this because it’s what many customers need to fulfill their missions, safely, reliably, and in compliance with the requirements they have.

Imagine a retailer who uses a Web browser at the point of sale, or for customer support. During a holiday selling period their PCs might be running 20 hours a day or more continuously. They simply don’t have time for maintenance – even assuming that the updates have zero impact on the compatibility with the applications and sites they rely on. Now, consider their uptime need with the near perfect compatibility they need with a set of existing, in-use applications.

This is why many Windows customers deploy the Windows Software Update Service (link) to moderate updates and ensure they have time to validate updates. These tools enable customers to have full control in managing and distributing software updates from Microsoft to Windows computers on their network. There are many reasons IE is the most used browser in large organizations; this post (link) discusses some of them, like comprehensive management tools, compatibility, and migration support.

Hospitals, power plants, emergency call response centers, universities, states, and credit unions may choose to stay on a particular browser/operating systems combination for a variety of reasons. Requiring them to run the very latest browser offering – to upgrade software and keep it working at a cadence that doesn’t work for them, just because it’s easier for the software provider– is simply not possible for many of them given legacy mission-critical applications and their limited resources.

Beyond security fixes, these updates that go out every eight weeks include changes both for large organizations and for the consumers who rely on the services of these large organizations world-wide. For this reason, each of the many update packages we ship to IE come in two forms. Both include security, reliability, and compatibility updates as well as updates requested by large organizations (like Adobe, Fuji, HP, Nissan, SAP, or Verizon Wireless, to name a few) that need changes to IE to enable their services to work better for consumers who run Windows. Of the two forms, one of them is for large organizations that need a special, “one-off” fix for an issue that the majority of other customers do not need. An example here might be a power plant that hits a boundary case involving JavaScript interfacing with a legacy control system. The other form is for individuals and organizations that don’t need any of these particular fixes. Over the last year, IE has released about 100 security-based changes (detailed in the release notes with each update). Over the same time period, we’ve made even more changes in IE to increase compatibility, reliability, and performance for the services that consumers, businesses, and large organizations use and provide on the Web.

We deliver these updates on a predicable cadence, working with many people worldwide, to help global customers keep their operations running. Products like Windows and Office have a lifecycle policy (link) that typically runs 10+ years because that’s what these organizations need. As part of Windows, IE honors that 10+ year commitment.

The best way to move the Web forward involves fulfilling the real-world needs of the individuals and organizations on the Web. Sometimes, the needs for stable information infrastructure include Web browsers that are compatible with key systems, are fully updated with respect to security issues, and are not necessarily the very latest version. We respect that the people who run the critical infrastructure of the world must do so without our goals for a modern Web trumping their needs to run their systems under their control.

Providing that option – the ‘and’ rather than the ‘or’ others offer – is key to progress on the Web. We want all Windows customers to have the best experience of the Web.

Many Windows customers work in large organizations. Because we want these individuals to have the best experience of the Web, we work to make it easier for IT to meet their needs. So, we support older versions of IE, and we build deployment, management, and migration tools even as we deliver hardware-acceleration, professional-grade standards support, and innovative approaches to safety (like Application Reputation and Tracking Protection).

People, individually and in large organizations, who use IE on Windows are Microsoft customers. Moving the Web forward for both of them involves and, not the tyranny of OR.

— Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer
Click to expand...

cm1971 · Jun 28, 2011

I wonder if we are seeing Mozilla beginning to jump the shark. I have been with Firefox a long time (since it was beta before the first official version was even released) but I don't particularly like some of their most recent decisions. One is stopping support for Firefox 4 after it has not even been out all that long. I don't think it is in their best interest to throw enterprise under the bus and articles like this don't help.

-http://blogs.computerworld.com/18537/microsoft_should_rejoice_firefox_throws_in_the_towel_on_the_enterprise

J_L · Jun 28, 2011

To meet those needs, we ship updates to five versions of IE across seven operating systems with 14 Service Pack variations
Click to expand...

How did they get those numbers? Doesn't add up right to me.

The rest of it does kind of make sense.

Kevin McAleavey · Jun 28, 2011

As far as Windows goes, does this mean that I can finally upgrade my IE4 on WinME? Woohoo!

And as to Mozilla, this is what happens when "free software" depends on funding rather than revenue. For many years, mozilla foundation derived funding from that little box in the upper right corner that google paid them to send searches through much like those tiny classified ads on so many websites - earning pennies per many impressions.

With Chrome, google can keep the money and so it's worth their effort to stop the mozilla funding, obviously leaving mozilla without the resources required to provide the same level of support that Microsoft can with what they charge for each and every copy. As much as Firefox4 blows goats, I can see the end as google conquers the world. FF4 was *so* awful that we stuck with 3.6 in KNOS and 3.6 compared to the stability of the 3.5 chain also makes us bleat. Killing off 3.5 was something awful for us. It's s shame because mozilla didn't fall, they're being pushed.

And thus, our OWN plans have been to move directly to a proper webkit/HTML5/WebM browser in our system without the google stuff and to hell with the rest of them.

Spysnake · Jun 28, 2011

Yep, it's looking bad for Mozilla. Some of the "evangelista" comments actually resemble those of many hacker groups. The comments seem quite aggressive. They have decided something without giving it a much thought, and now are actively driving customers away.

Is there anything besides Chrome or IE that one could switch in the place of Firefox? Chrome has the same annoying release schelude, IE doesn't have good addon support.

allizomeniz · Jun 28, 2011

Home users also want stability and predictability, not just corporate. Firefox's quick release is a bunch of bull. I don't see how they think they're serving regular users.

dw426 · Jun 28, 2011

What happened, we get tired of complaining in the Mozilla 5 thread, so we moved it to a new one? As for corporate and their supposed need to stay "stable", well, ask them if the Lulz boat has visited them yet. I don't care how long it takes an IT department or how much begging, pleading or butt kissing it takes to get people to spend money on it, when it's easier to attack my bank, my credit card company, my hospital and so on, than it is my home computer, "Houston, we've had a problem", and they better damn sure fix it.

The excuses have got to stop at some point, and, while on the topic of Mozilla, so does the bit**ing quite honestly.

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