Google is dropping support for IE6 
Undoubtedly there will still be places whose IT departments are so incompetent or underfunded as to be unable to ditch that unholy crock of tulip, but this a useful step to getting even big companies to realise that, if their IT department can't eradicate IE6 from the workplace, their IT department must be either full of incompetents or underfunded.
At a conference last summer I was chatting to a guy who had just left the IE team, having worked on it since IE2 in 1994 or so, and who has also been involved in developing a number of W3C specs. He'd just moved on within MS: now that even MS realises that compliance with web standards is a requirement that affects almost all their products, they want to spread his expertise around (after having ignored his recommendations for years). He made it clear that he too now loathes IE6 despite having written substantial parts of it, primarily because although it was good in its day (which can't be denied), its day passed around 2004.
When he went up to do his presentation, he told us that the IE team had come to him, saying that a big corporate customer wanted MS to commit to supporting IE6 until 2014. His response: "Tell them to **** off, we're not doing that!"
A month or two later MS announced that it was extending its support period for IE6 beyond the usual ten years... to 2014.
Given that MS itself is so much in hock to the requirements of the incompetent staff of the IT departments of its big corporate customers (you didn't really believe they cared about you did you?) that it won't even listen to the informed advice of its own staff (I'm sure what we heard was just the summary), it's good to see a powerful outside force putting the boot in, thereby bringing the necessity of eradicating IE6 as thoroughly as if it was lice on your children to wider attention
Aside: The presentation after his, about HTML5, was by a high-profile figure in the web standards world who had spent some time providing consultancy to MS in an attempt to get it up to speed, and had therefore worked closely with {formerIEguy}. He was sat in the front row, and at one point she asked him "Hey {formerIEguy}, any idea what the IE team's plans are on implementing this?" He shouted back "Don't ask me what those bastards are up to!" - and the word "bastards" was uttered with tremendous feeling
Thankfully, he's now in a position to tell them how to do it right, rather than having to argue with those who can't see the point of not doing it wrong.
Undoubtedly there will still be places whose IT departments are so incompetent or underfunded as to be unable to ditch that unholy crock of tulip, but this a useful step to getting even big companies to realise that, if their IT department can't eradicate IE6 from the workplace, their IT department must be either full of incompetents or underfunded.
At a conference last summer I was chatting to a guy who had just left the IE team, having worked on it since IE2 in 1994 or so, and who has also been involved in developing a number of W3C specs. He'd just moved on within MS: now that even MS realises that compliance with web standards is a requirement that affects almost all their products, they want to spread his expertise around (after having ignored his recommendations for years). He made it clear that he too now loathes IE6 despite having written substantial parts of it, primarily because although it was good in its day (which can't be denied), its day passed around 2004.
When he went up to do his presentation, he told us that the IE team had come to him, saying that a big corporate customer wanted MS to commit to supporting IE6 until 2014. His response: "Tell them to **** off, we're not doing that!"
A month or two later MS announced that it was extending its support period for IE6 beyond the usual ten years... to 2014.
Given that MS itself is so much in hock to the requirements of the incompetent staff of the IT departments of its big corporate customers (you didn't really believe they cared about you did you?) that it won't even listen to the informed advice of its own staff (I'm sure what we heard was just the summary), it's good to see a powerful outside force putting the boot in, thereby bringing the necessity of eradicating IE6 as thoroughly as if it was lice on your children to wider attention
Aside: The presentation after his, about HTML5, was by a high-profile figure in the web standards world who had spent some time providing consultancy to MS in an attempt to get it up to speed, and had therefore worked closely with {formerIEguy}. He was sat in the front row, and at one point she asked him "Hey {formerIEguy}, any idea what the IE team's plans are on implementing this?" He shouted back "Don't ask me what those bastards are up to!" - and the word "bastards" was uttered with tremendous feeling
Thankfully, he's now in a position to tell them how to do it right, rather than having to argue with those who can't see the point of not doing it wrong.
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