The Spinosa Factor

This might be a little bit of a late post but so be it. I.E. 8 Beta forces to load even the most popular of sites in compatability mode. As a high level techologist and not so much under the hood I wanted to extend my sincere thanks for alot of headache to service related web firms across the United States.

DON’T MISUNDERSTAND ME. I’m down with the advancement of technology I’m just voicing sour grapes at the onslaught of compatability issues that’s going to come in the finalized version of Internet Explorer 8. Now don’t get me wrog there are alot of terrific enhancements to I.E. 8 especially in terms of development and increased AJAX support especially in terms of UI consideration. However these changes are distincty different from I.E. 7 making cross compatability between two browser versions VERY difficult. How about this for a compatability nightmare.

BROWSERS WEB DEV’S USUALLY SUPPORT

1. Internet Explorer Version 7 and 8 (Still support 6? Better start rethinking anything earlier than 7 even though a huge percentage of people still use it.)
2. Mozilla Firefox Versions 2 and 3
3. Google Chrome (Beta)

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer changes are of course on a closed source platform in direct contradiction with it’s two primary competitors looking everyday to gather another percentage of market share away from the software giant. Web firms are presented with a very important decision in that each browser translates HTML, CSS, AJAX, ActiveX, etc differently making for different impacts per browser.

SMALL BUSINESS GETS BURNED!

Who’s going to get hurt? The clients more than the web firms that have had many site’s developed. Much like buying a car, when upgrades or the new model roles out you need to pay for the upgrade or new car. These are the moments when small businesses are begging for great relationships and strong maintenance contracts/partnerships with their web firms.

THE GOOD NEWS

We can only hope for the total death of I.E. 6 and I really encourage all companies, consumers to upgrade. I.E. 7 is a plenty stable platform and to be honest it’ long overdue if you haven’t already. Companies concerned with security issues need to realize that while there are always valid concerns most of the cross scripting issues have been completely resolved and the platform is most certainly stable.

Also the progress of user experience is hindered by anyone that refuses to upgrade. Web firms are excited to bring these amazing experiences to organizations everywhere. However our forward progress in creating better usability is most certainly prefaced with new available technologies that allow us to do the previously impossible! Pushing these changes will force  the long overdue upgrades of users across the world.