JAB_Creations - 1:22 pm on Jun 30, 2009 (gmt 0)

Swa, let's not forget that there is no guarantee that we'll see IE9 on XP and I totally agree about IE8 and the horrid lack of critical CSS3 support. Personally XP is the last version of Windows I'll use that isn't being emulated (I'll emulate Vista and eventually 7,8, etc on Linux) though a lot of people aren't waiting for 7, they're just not going to upgrade period. Microsoft committed GUI suicide with Vista and 7 is simply Vista++; and removed useful features (classic start menu, the ability to move the entire My Documents folder and instead changed it to the counter-intuitive micro-management of only moving individual folders, etc). While IE8 made a lot of progress it still needs to cover a large amount of ground to finish catching up.

The biggest mistake Microsoft can make with IE9 is to not release it on XP. They certainly have the ability to do so and there will be a large chunk of users with XP for years to come. IE6 may be holding the web back now but consider the long term ramifications of being stuck with a considerable share of IE8 users in five or six years. Most computers are more then capable of fulfilling people's needs. It's not until a something like a blown PSU and the lack of a techie that a household will even bother to consider purchasing a new computer. So as far as consumers are concerned how long will it be until MSN, Live, Bing, Bang, and Boom all redirect IE users to a different browser vendor like Microsoft did with Mac users? I really don't want to be stuck programming JavaScript 1.5 for another decade much less deal with a significant share of the browser market that can't handle multi-column layouts, border-radius, and oh, I dunno, opacity (and by that I mean real opacity).

- John