Today, I read an article that was about enterprises having a difficult time migrating to Windows 7. The cause? IE6, of course!
In the article, someone is quoted as saying that Microsoft should do more to help its customers because the problem was caused by Microsoft!
I don't normally defend Microsoft, but I think every enterprise that wrote applications that could only run on IE6 deserve what they get! After all, it was never a big secret that Microsoft was trying to make sure that they locked you into Windows, by locking you into proprietary browser technology. No one should be surprised, and Microsoft is not to blame.
When I worked in IT, during the very time when IE 5, 5.5 and 6 were the predominant IE releases, we tested all our web applications on Firefox, as well as IE, just to make sure that we weren't using proprietary IE features.
As Enterprise architects, you have to think beyond what the developer cares about, and think about the entire enterprise. With that in mind, decisions about proprietary technology have to be weighed very heavily. As anyone that has read this blog knows, I'm no fan of proprietary technology, and this article is just another data point, in a long line of data points, that shows you eventually pay a price for using ANY proprietary technology. This example is especially egregious, just because the enterprises in question aren't even switching to a competitive operating system solution, but cannot even upgrade to the latest version from the same vendor.
In this day and age, everyone should know better!
