Experts deride IE9 as a 'œnon-event' for corporate Australia

David Swan
Tuesday, 15 March 2011 12:01

IT Industry - Development

The newest version of Microsoft's struggling Internet Explorer has been described as a 'non-event', due to the lack of compatibility with Windows XP.

 

 

Ovum, an Australian technology research organisation, released a statement today outlining their skepticism of the new browser, stating that 'we expect it to be a non-event for the vast majority of corporate IT managers and their users.'

'This is largely because IE9 does not run on Windows XP - the operating system running on 67% of corporate desktops. Organisations with public-facing websites will probably try and encourage consumers to use the more capable, web standards compliant IE9 in order to make life easier for their web developers and to wow them with a richer experience, but non-technical users will probably wait until Microsoft pushes the browser out in a Windows service pack.'

'New browser versions are also expected from the competition, but we believe the next battle ground for the 'browser wars' will be fought not on the desktop, but on the smartphone and tablet, and this is where Microsoft's existing browser offering still has a lot of catching up to do.'

Microsoft's decision to make IE9 OS-dependant seems to contradict its views that 'the cloud' is where technology is headed, and not making its flagship browser backwards compatible with its most popular OS, even if it is ten years old, will force corporate Australia to ignore the new browser.

In Europe, Firefox replaced IE as the leading browser in December 2010, with 38% usage share.  IE's recent decline in Europe is thought to be explained by IE users switching to Chrome.

According to Netapplications, Internet Explorer currently has a usage rate worldwide of 56.77%, compared to 21.74% for Firefox and 10.93% for Chrome.