| Tech Trends |
| Microsoft drops Mac IE - Finally |
| by Manoj Khanna |
| Finally, Microsoft understands the Mac world's preference - or lack thereof - for Internet Explorer (IE). Beginning Dec 31, 2005 Microsoft plans to discontinue support for its not-so-popular IE for Mac. |
I never found a good reason to download IE for Mac. Maybe because there was always Opera and then in the recent years FireFox and Apple's own Safari. In fact, I'm quite content with Safari all by itself - though sometimes I go out into the world browsing with FireFox. But IE for Mac? Never been there. Not sure how many people use it or for that matter even know IE for Mac exists. (!)
Back in June 2003 Microsoft announced that it would take out support out for IE for Mac, which I guess left users a bit in limbo, and since then IE for Mac remained stagnant in version 5, although the Windows version of IE was released in version 6. Not surprisingly, Microsoft itself seems to have been suggesting that Mac users look elsewhere for options like Safari, FireFox and Opera for web browsers.
IE for Mac was a wasteful effort from Microsoft, the relationship was never fated to work, even though it plowed along for sometime. IE should take a lesson or two from the FireFox technology and development - and perhaps Microsoft researchers should attend some tutorials from FireFox developers. It's sad to learn that a company like Microsoft that spends millions of dollars every year on research is not even able to produce competitive and reliable browser technology in the past 15 years of the world wide web, whereas FireFox's collaborative effort paid off so well that its shaking the world of IE now. For Mac, there's no better option than Safari or FireFox.
It'll be interesting to watch what's up the sleeves of Microsoft in browser next year when Apple's first Mac comes with Intel's chip! Maybe IE will make a come back with a new version for Mac! Or may be not! I for one am content to have IE offhope not. |
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