We're Chopped Liver?

I'm thrilled to hear that IE7 will enter beta cycles in the summer of 2005. That said, I'm more than a little put off by this public statement:

Why? Because we listened to customers, analysts, and business partners. We heard a clear message: 'Yes, XP SP2 makes the situation better. We want more, sooner. We want security on top of the compatibility and extensibility IE gives us, and we want it on XP. Microsoft, show us your commitment.'

Uh, what do you think we've been talking about all this time – like, back in the IE5 days?! I can't read minds (or translate marketing-speak), but I'm confident that this announcement may very well have been subtitled something along the lines of “We don't want youse guys to switch to Firefox.” I don't use Firefox – and I didn't plan on switching to Firefox just because it was sitting there with a prettier default icon. We – the customers and analysts, at least – have been pushing for noteworthy updates for years. Witness a comment in their thread by Jeff Powell:

Amazing, Microsoft is finally going to release an update for Internet Explorer after what, 5 years now? (counting the service pack update in XPSP2). I remember the days of the browser wars when we anxiously awaited each new release beceause each time they brought forth compelling new features that actually made using the web more interesting. Microsoft is always really good at that when someone gets out ahead of them and does it better, sooner (ala Netscape). IE was for some time THE best game in town but like far too many MS technologies, as soon as they became king of the browser hill, they got lazy, IE grew long in the tooth and it too a slew of compelling browsers (and web standards) to get MS to finally declare that they would indeed launch another version of IE.

They wouldn't be making this move if Firefox wasn't a “threat.” In that sense, let me say that I hope Firefox continues to be a “threat” – if that's the only way we can light a fire under someone's foot o'er in the IE development realm. Again, I'd encourage the IE team to lift heavily from Maxthon. My ol' buddy Russell Coover weighed in today…

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