MS Wants IE Dead too

Unsurprisingly Microsoft wants IE6 as dead as much as the rest of us do. They’ve launched an information site called IE6 Count Down, which gives a brief rundown of why, some nice looking stats, and a link to IE9. Well I’d prefer anything over IE6, even IE9.

The site includes ways of adding banners, the standard “why you should move” type information, and some nice rounded edges and good presentation.

Overall a good job that is presentable to both business users and the general public. Design wise I think they have hit a happy medium that works.

It may not help, but this is direct evidence to use in dicussion with organisations who are still using IE6 as part of their standard s.o.e. (standard operating environment – a geek term for the controlled hardware and software rolled out in large companies).

However it might not change much, given that the very organisations which often have mandated environments to use older software are usually not happy about being behind, but are limited by budget and size. Rolling out Firefox to a 30 person network is easy and on your desktop its simple, yet changing away from IE6 for 1200 seats in a hospital is much harder. Basically impossible until something breaks dramatically from what I’ve experienced.

Time will tell. Fingers crossed.