Guest post by Microsoft decided that due to their new interoperability initiative, they would reverse a previous decision to make IE8 default to the IE7 engine, instead of supporting standards-compliance by default. No article or musing I have yet read has delved into what is increasingly likely, the reason for this sudden change in decision — and that is this: the mobile web is coming.
The iPhone & iPod Touch have caused an influx of mobile web browsing the likes even Google had not seen. Many smart phones have an Internet browser, only Apple’s has had the interface to make it desirable to use to non-geeks in a way that can be measured in server-log lines, and not in forum-posts by iPhone detractors.
Microsoft have a mobile-browser, how are they competing with this? They are not. Mobile IE is unusable compared to the development buzz surrounding mobile web-apps using Safari, which supports a full compliment of standards.
If Microsoft were to default to the IE7 rendering engine on their desktop browser, how would this affect the rapidly rising mobile browsing market? They would simply get left behind.
Their mobile browser would have to ship both IE7, and later engines to maintain compatibility with a web they were partly defining with their desktop client. Any new fancy features their mobile browser could offer to compete with Safari would be stymied by the fact that the majority of websites would be coded to the IE7 engine by unaware novice web developers and out of date web development packages; all the time while web developers explore new avenues of web apps using the full set of standards open to them on Apple’s handheld via iPhone-only websites.
Microsoft are having to face their own irrelevance in this market. They could either stick to the age-old excuse of backwards compatibility, and in doing so totally jeopardise progress with Windows Mobile in comparison to swifter competition in the form of Apple, and Google’s Android – or they could jettison the weight of 10 year old business Intranets and ship a lighter, quicker, safer and more competitive browser to help them shape how people view the web from both the desktop, and the mobile.
Microsoft are dropping the hint that lagging enterprise customers need to upgrade to standards or be left in the lurch. Ageing web apps will break. That is a massive change in attitude to “Microsoft of old” a week ago. They would only do that if the benefits absolutely outweighed any short term loss. Businesses can experience the usual upgrade headaches by changing a few web apps that haven’t been touched in 10 years, they have no choice anyway – where the web matters is no longer the enterprise, it’s in the pockets of individuals.
Do you really think that an enterprise is going to upgrade it’s web-apps just because MS is doing a browser upgrade ? I don’t …
But a week ago, they could have; IE8 would have defaulted to IE7, and lo- little to no changes would have to be made.
Microsoft just took a hammer to that whole idea. Don’t downplay that this is a major statement. In OS equivalence it would be like announcing that Windows 7 would drop almost all backwards compatibility in the name of improvements.
It’s entirely needed in this situation.
The Web is broken, Microsoft broke it.
Well not entirely Microsoft, but the events of the first browser wars with the emphasis on features over stability and standards are what brought this on.
Now, this already bad trend was further supplemented by negligence on Microsoft’s part to make a standard compliant browser once and for all.
Ideally, the perfect time would of been to make IE7 support as much standards from the get go. They needed to break the Web again, once and for all.
Now they’re facing a dilemma: They have to support three rendering mode:
Quirks Mode (IE5/IE6 bugs)
“Standards” Mode (IE7)
Super Standards Mode (IE8)
People have hard coded specific things into web pages (User Agent specific code, browser specific bug work arounds) and expect these things to remain working.
In some cases, the website is not even actively developed anymore.
So Microsoft has the choice of making the IE8 Standards Mode “opt-in” or making the IE7 mode “opt-in”
Consider the following:
IE7 was released a little over a year ago, so websites coded specifically for it will be fresh. Meaning you can assume a great deal will still be actively developed.
Now, by making the IE7 behavior “opt-in” these still actively developed websites would just need to use a simple meta-tag to request the old rendering mode.
Additionally, consider if the reverse were true:
Let’s say Microsoft stuck with their previous decision of making the IE8 rendering mode “opt-in”.
Now fast forward to IE9, they now have an additional standard to support because people hard coded values to “opt-in” for the support.
With their new decision, they can avoid further driving a wedge between their own products and save themselves a more apparent than ever headache.
So ideally IE8 is going to be a clean slate, and support as much standards as possible (Evidenced by it passing the ACID2 test which in itself requires extensive CSS support)
Additional IE releases would be able to be incremental, not groundbreaking. This seems to fall in place with their statement on wanting to release early, release often.
More importantly, it requires extensive HTML support. Parts of ACID2 are graphics rendered inline from hex data, something no Microsoft browser has ever (to my knowledge) supported.
Remember that ACID is a measure of error handling as well as feature support. Those of you who remember when Netscape and IE didn’t render tables identically can get a better idea of what ACID’s reaching for.
They will upgrade. Microsoft upgrades leave you with no choice, you must upgrade to. So, they will have to upgrade to 8.x, and adjust their applications as well.
I don’t think they will have so many compatibility problems to fix, many developers write code that works in any browser, for years. Enterprises are sticking with IE because it can be managed with group policies.
I would dispute the statement about Apple having the only decent mobile web browser for non-geeks. This is obviously not true, anyone who can use Safari mobile can use the S60 web browser or even Opera mini.
The thing that Apple shines at is providing a consistent, end to end user experience and portraying their products as cool. Anyone who felt like using Facebook (or any website) on the mobile web could have done so a while before the iPhone was released. Apple’s marketing and their focus on a consistent “out of the box” experience is what pushes people to make the switch.
Regarding the theory on why MS decided to default to the standards compliant mode, I think it’s a combination of several different factors. I am sure the mobile web had something to do with it, but for some reason I don’t feel that it’s the main reason.
Opera Mini/Mobile is a brilliant browser – but when I want to look something up out and about, I just wait until I get home. Keypad driven browser interfaces don’t have the same quite ‘instant’ gratification that means that you can whip your phone out and discuss what films are on. Could you imagine trying to do that with Opera Mini, you’d be standing there for 10 minutes tapping away whilst your friends get bored.
Stylus driven is acceptable, but then you look like a tool. Multi-touch is the best at dealing with ‘real life’ IMO.
I do just exactly that with Opera on a daily basis. Set up your bookmarks right, and no tapping required. It’s less intrusive than text messaging.
I have no problem using a keyboard for mobile browsing, the lack of QWERTY input is a pain, but that’s about it. I also don’t see why Safari Mobile on the iPhone is miles ahead in the mobile browsing experience than it’s competitors. While the iPhone is popular, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Apple has the best mobile browsing implementation.
I’ll second that. One of the reasons I will be replacing my Treo with a S60 phone next week is the pathetic browsing experience on Palm’s Blazer. Granted, it’s better than the average non-smartphone, but not by much. The S60 phones by Nokia have a browser based on the same rendering engine as Safari. It’s not quite as spiffy as the iPhone; screen size and non-touchscreen capability limit it somewhat, but from what I’ve seen it is leaps and bounds ahead of Palm. I’m looking forward to being able to access my bank account again, as well as benefitting from all the iPhone-friendly web applications springing up.
The Symbian OS has really come along nicely in the past few years, something I’ve ignored until recently, when I really started hitting brick walls with my aging Palm. It will be a refreshing change and a step towards the future of standards-based mobile browsing.
Really interesting article. Never thought of it that way. It’s a really good point though, I’ve used a couple of mobile browsers(Safari, Opera Mini, Opera Mobile) and anything that’s standard-compliant and doesen’t rely heavily on JS or Flash usually works like a charm. So… my experiences fit your theory. Thanks for a good article.
(If OSnews sent my mobile browser a far more the desktop version of the site, or at least the a link to that one on the mobile version I’d probably read OSnews as much on my mobile as I do on my PC. I allready do that with several other newssites.)
btw. The Safari isn’t the only mobile browser worth mentioning, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile shipped on no less than 122 mobile phone models last year. Opera Mini is really interesting since it works on all phones. (For PDA-like phones the more powerfull Opera Mobile is more interesting since it’s actually more or less the same engine as desktop Opera.)
I’ve actually managed to get hold of a leaked Opera Mobile 0.50 Pre-Alpha. Of course not very stable, but show som really interesting stuff. Looking forward to when it’s released. (Please excuse my obvius Opera-fanboyism, I mean no harm!)
Yes, Opera Mini/Mobile are so great that even though it’s packaged on 122 mobile phone models, just exactly who is using it? Could it be, nobody likes using the net on a crappy phone?
Meanwhile, “50 times more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset…”
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/02/14/google_iphone_usage_s…
Maybe we get mobile opera for the iPhone in a few months…
I wouldn’t be suprised if they release Opera Mobile for it. (I’ve actually seen a alleged YouTube clip where they ask a Opera-employee and says “Yes” and the clips end right there so there might be a “but…”)
(Opera Mini is java-app, so it probably allready runs through one of the unofficial java-ports to iPhone)
The biggest problem with most phone is actually screen size. It’s very often to small, and of too small resolution to surf well. Opera Mini(maybe along with Nokia’s browser) is probably the only browsers that work well on simple handsets. Compared to other browsers on mobile(with the exception of iPhone) they are quite popular. I think Opera Mini is espescially strong considering how many mobiles it’s NOT included on. Most people prefer to use included software on stuff where it is good enough… but each day over 100 000 peple actually bothers to download Opera Mini. And they are using it, Opera Mini was used to view 1.8 billion pages in January. (Source: http://operawatch.com/news/2008/03/opera-mini-monthly-page-views-gr…) Might not sound all that huge, but remember that a lot of these numbers are comming from handset with traditional handset, and not fancy PDA’s or iPhone-inspired stuff.
On my HTC TyTn II surfing with Opera Mini works very well. It’s not because of it’s running Windows Mobile, and although having a pen(or touch screen) play a factor the big things that suddenely makes surfing joyable on a mobile is this: A large, high-resolution screen. This is paramount to a good browsing experience.
Hmm… so the low number of mobile surfers is largeley due to screen. (And mobile internet prices of course.)
Sucking. IE7 is indistinguishable from IE6 on standards, bar the following:
1. support for + and > operators
2. correction of box model calculations
IE6 reflects CSS circa 2000. IE7 reflects CSS circa 2001. Literally scores of missing CSS selectors are still missing, HTML elements like OBJECT and BUTTON are exactly as broken as they were in 2001, text-align:center still centers block elements like TABLE instead of cascading down to their first inline element (cell text)…
No matter what MS’ devblog says, IE7’s development was all about plugging security holes, not rewriting rendering engines. Complaints made to IE’s developer site were either marked IGNORED or dismissed with “We’ll fix it in IE8” at a time when we expected IE8 to come out sometime around 2012.
MS isn’t driving Web 2.0 any more, and Firefox is seriously eroding IE’s market share. Either MS gets on the bus or IE becomes marginalized to an intranet business platform.
“Either MS gets on the bus or IE becomes marginalized to an intranet business platform.”
Funny.. that is exactly what I use it for. Since the Intranet has a terrible habit of opening just about everything inside the browser (PDF, DOC), I use IE for that because I know they made it for IE and browse the rest using FF.
I wasn’t being snarky. If there were some way to strip IE down to an intranet app engine a la XULrunner, you’d get the best of all worlds.
Are we to understand that a month ago, the mobile web was *not* coming, but as of a day or two ago, it *is* coming?
It doesn’t make sense. Nothing has changed in that respect. What has changed is that the specter of an investigation into exactly this area of their business practices has just come over the horizon.
Why do some people want to deny what is so very, very, obvious?
Oh, and it must have hurt, hurt, hurt Ballmer when he realized that he had no choice but to play by the rules.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, from this American citizen to all of the EU!
Edited 2008-03-05 19:48 UTC
I imagine that some of the newer IE team members have been pushing for it for a while and it was only a matter of time before they broke down the wall.
So, you think some new employee had lunch with Steve Ballmer and convinced him what a great thing it would be to do this? And that just coincidentally occurred shortly after the announcement of a possible new investigation into this very area of Microsoft’s business practices, and the levying of a $1.4 billion fine covering past violations?
If I were Ballmer, I know which of those *I* would be paying the most attention to.
But do keep it up. I must confess that watching the Microsoft appologists and spinmeisters grapple with this one has been amusing. 🙂
“So, you think some new employee had lunch with Steve Ballmer and convinced him what a great thing it would be to do this? And that just coincidentally occurred shortly after the announcement of a possible new investigation into this very area of Microsoft’s business practices, and the levying of a $1.4 billion fine covering past violations?”
The only problem I have with this is the time frame. I would have agreed with you %100, without that. IE8 has been in the works way before the ruling even came out. Your statement would be correct had they just started working on IE8, however since it is close to release, that cannot be the case. It takes time to do that, not something that can be done in just a month or 2, so to me that means it was already in process, with the ruling just making them look bad in *this* instance.
Are we talking about the same thing? Of course IE8 has the *capability* to operate in a more standards compliant mode than its predecessors. We’ve known that for a long time. What has changed is only the mode which it uses *by default* when rendering a page. A few weeks ago, MS announced that pages would be assumed to be “quirky” (written for IE6) if the author did not specifically include a declaration that basically said: “I’m talking to you, IE8! Please use standards mode.”. A couple of days ago, MS announced that instead of that, IE8 would use standards mode by default.
So… how many months or years of development do you think that it would require for them to make that change?
Edited 2008-03-05 20:45 UTC
The entire point of quirks mode is that it’s supposed to render using the immediate major preceding version, not two versions back.
Moreover given the virtually nonexistent differences I outlined earlier between IE6/IE7’s renderers, this would be pointless.
“Are we talking about the same thing? “
Yes and no. I was looking at the whole development process, not just the quick change..my bad. I wasn’t totally awake when I posted.
I agree with you, though I also think the author of the article has a good point.
It’s quite obvious that MS decided to do this to avoid a future ass kicking from the EU, the Ars article even pointed this out. Then again, Nokia just signed a deal with MS to license Silverlight so the idea that MS is waking up to the potential money to be made in interoperability is more than just a fancy.
Obviously, IE is the corporate intranet browser to use as pretty much every intranet app was writing with it in mind, but since the return of Apple as a player, and the rise of FireFox, IE, which had been left to rote, has steadily lost market share. Nobody considers using IE for there handheld offering and that has got to be an MS eye opener in a world that is becoming more and more mobile driven.
I think it’s a mixture of many things, with the weight being on the EU investigation. But MS most definitely know that a large chunk of future IT profits will be made in the ultra portable and mobile space. If they don’t start getting their foot in the door quick, they could end up losing out to the likes of Google’s Android platform.
Absolutely agreed about there being multiple factors with different weightings. I think that we’ve all been arguing in black and white when the truth is grayscale.
So I’ll start by assigning the EC factor a weight of 899 million. 🙂
You’re welcome.
Best regards,
Herman from Rotterdam, EU (same place iron lady Neelie’s from.
)
with that total Apple fanboyism. In mobile world iPhone is yesterday news. If MS would make any move with iPhone in mind it would be months ago. Also if sites are making special versions for iPhone it means that standards are not working and webmasters are total morons. One page should gradually degrade to fit mobile environment without any special version.
What was major announcement for mobiles in recent days? Nokia “partnership” with MS. If anything was influencing Redmonds decision it was that.
I agree. I could probaply come up lot better explanations. Firstly IE has to be updated since other Microsoft products like Sharepoint and web development tools require support for Firefox and other web browsers. To make that happen they have to get standards work and the biggest problem is IE. Microsoft is facing more and more situations where there money making products are demanded to work on non-IE enviroment. In this situation it would look bad to have own product(IE) that doesn’t work with other your own products.
Other would be Microsoft public talk on been better “teamplayer”, in that public image IE is like big ugly mould. iPhone has very little global effect and everything around is more an hype than real business at the moment.
IE8 has been released to the public and I am posting this comment on it right now in Emulate IE7 mode. Standards Mode was too buggy on OSnews to properly post this comment.
http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/03/05/her…
It failed the Acid 2 test in Standards mode.
Edited 2008-03-05 20:29 UTC
Erm…Wonky though it may be, it seems to post here just fine in standards mode…
It is buggy when posting links or trying to move the cursor. If you just post a comment with no changes, it works fine.
No article or musing I have yet read has delved into what is increasingly likely, the reason for this sudden change in decision — and that is this: the mobile web is coming.
No article I have yet read has stated the reason for this change including this one. Article is pure speculation without basis. Mobile IE unusable? According to who? You? Many people are happy with their Windows based devices and to say that its due to mobile web is just wrong. It has nothing to do with Apple and web-apps either. Anyone who codes specifically for the iphone or itouch is going to lose a considerable amount of page views for catering to a small market like that.
The most likely reason for this change is standardization and organization change at Microsoft. Plus their customers griping about compatibility issues as well.
Take a look at xda-developers forum.
“Everyone” are looking for alternatives to Pocket IE. It’s not really usable unless you are on very very simple pages.
But it’s stupid to say that Windows Mobile is unusable for internet for that reason, there are many good alternatives with the leading for the moment being Opera Mini and Netfront.
Some seem to prefer the current(8.54) Opera Mobile as well. I can’t fully understand that since it don’t have any of those zooming-capabilites that you need when surfing mobile.
Although I think the article-author at least is partially right the reason behind it is probably a bit complicated with what the author mentions along side a general attitude to becoming more open.
Edited 2008-03-05 22:16 UTC
You really don’t need that unless the site in question is overpoweringly visual. If you have a decent standards-based page (see where this is going?) even without a handheld stylesheet, Opera Mobile does a fantastic job of reformatting and laying it out to be usable. Far more usable than panning and scanning.
How can a company whose browser has 80-something % of market could face irrelevance in browser market is beyond me.
It’s much more likely that Microsoft rushed IE8 to market in order to introduce changes like, for example, the ability to remove IE from a Windows installation. Moreover, forcing standard-compliant behaviour could reduce the scope for anti-trust trials, like the one Opera did in EU.
If they can claim IE is behaving in a perfectly standard way, they cannot be accused to influence browser market. A 100% standard-compliant IE can be considered neutral to Windows…
Since Internet Exploder is loaded by default, it’s used by default. It didn’t get to majority usage because it was good but it could go to minority usage because it’s not compliant with standards.
The trouble is that it doesn’t matter unless Microsoft changes its web development tools also, not just for large companies but for the small companies and individuals.
It likely doesn’t make a difference, but Opera Mini is a so-so browser made worse by version 4.x than version 3.x. The mobile version of Safari is so much nicer but then, I have a display of 320×240 instead of 480×320. I doubt Safari would work better in uncontrolled situations.
Esther Schindler at CIO.com wrote http://www.cio.com/article/193350“>a on just what IE8 has to offer developers…
from the summary:
“Developer release lauded as “sweet!” but puts the focus on security, interoperability and better programming features rather than the user experience.”
I used to take glee in hearing any sour news regarding Internet Explorer but, somewhere along the way, I grew up. The way I see it, 80% of the market is still stuck on IE, not because of its superiority, but because most users will settle for anything put down in front of them. As long as 80% of a website’s traffic was IE-based, the authors will just keep coding for IE, quirks and all. In turn, this means more standards-compliant browsers (like Firefox or my favorite, Opera) will always have these rendering issues that IE fanboys love to point out.
Whatever their reasons may be, I think that MS having IE8 default to a more standards-compliant mode will mean that we’ll start seeing more websites coded to W3C standards. When/If that ever starts happening then everyone wins; users of alternative browsers won’t have as many rendering issues and broken websites to put up with. The practice of having a backup browser onboard just for rendering those broken websites will be well on its way to becoming a thing of the past.
If the vast majority of the “unwashed masses” having IE8 forces developers to code to standards then I really do hope that IE8 succeeds, and that’s not easy to say for a confessed linux afficionado 😉