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Followup to this thread.

I still don't get it. The answer I was given in the previous thread was that they wanted to make the entire internet proprietary so you couldn't surf in using anything but windows. The problem with this answer is with IE8 Microsoft seems to be trying to conform to the open standards and even is dropping support for it's old proprietary standards (sort of).

So I still have the same question: why does Microsoft care what internet browser I use? It doesn't come bundled with any windows live toolbars or anything else that can make microsoft any money, so why do they care? And furthermore, why are they going to so much effort and spending so much money to make IE8? Why don't they just bundle Firefox (or even better: Iceweasel) with Windows 7? It seems like it's a money sink, they spend money but don't get anything out of it. So why do they do it?

These days I'm not sure they actually do; at various points they've recommended that people DON'T use it for security reasons. I imagine it's continued presence is due to it being such a necessary part of Windows, since it's used for other stuff besides browsing. Committees are probably invovled.

Dominus Atheos wrote:So why do they do it?

Firstly ditching IE would be a massive PR blow against the company, who despite the odd token effort to play nice with Open Source are really still very much in bitter competition with it. There's also the fact that if something like Google Chrome becomes popular, then instead of their internal staff having a leg up on the competition making compatible apps, a competitor would have a head start instead. As Stark pointed out reworking all the bits of Windows that embed IE to use Gecko/WebKit/etc would be a huge amount of effort for very little initial gain - even if it would save resources in the long run, the development resources aren't available to do the conversion (Microsoft has the staff of course but lots of other tasks have higher priorities). Finally there's the fact that Microsoft PR genuinely tries to sell (the latest version) of IE as a superior browser that everyone should want, making it (supposedly) a reason to buy Windows.

Cynics on the Internet attribute this to an "embrace, extend, extinguish" method. Basically, what this means is "embrace the standard, add useless extensions to it, create a whole new, better 'standard' and advertise it as better, then eventually replace it". It was seen before with Microsoft's attempt to extend Java and JavaScript, and also their repeated attempts to "add" to HTML.

If anyone else can add to this list, I'd be curious on how much of this Microsoft has actually tried over the past few decades.

It also helps that IE's default search is MSN, which brings ad revenue.

Pu-239 wrote:It also helps that IE's default search is MSN, which brings ad revenue.

Every OEM changes that, so it's only the default for people doing a clean install, which is a very small percentage. Anyway if they want to ship Microsoft Iceweasel with Live as it's default search, they can.

In a nutshell, they intend to create dependence on their products so they can keep their leverage. In fact, they've used their market dominance to offer products for free (like IE or IM) thus driving their competition to the ground.

Have a read about what's so bad about Microsoft. It gives an idea of their MO.

And yes, I got the link from Mike's Page.

To be fair to MS, can you imagine getting a new computer in this day and age that doesn't come with a web browser? Hell, even if you're technically literate and have installed Windows by yourself and want to use Firefox/Opera/Chrome/... you still need something to get it with.

With that point, the next question is "which browser should MS bundle?"

And with its massive prevalence as the integrated HTML rendering engine in apps, the answer is a no-brainer, even if Microsoft would even for a second consider rebranding some open source effort. And they can't actually switch the engine easily - if they decided on switching to one of the other engines, they would still have to integrate a godawful amount of their tech back in (ActiveX, insure that ALL ActiveX plugins work, etc.), making the cost-benefit horrendous.

That's without even touching the benefits having their own browser does for integration. Sharepoint, Silverlight, RDP in the browser, etc. Basically all of MS Internet tech that attempts to provide a rich integrated experience (= necessity for plugins) depends on IE. Even when they branch out to other browsers, as in the case of Silverlight, without owning the browser the user's experience can be diminished, for which they then take the blame even when they aren't truly at fault (as in when the SL 2 betas broke in Firefox 3.x do to Firefox devs restructuring some underlying APIs without documenting the changes until after there was a huge shitstorm with lots of sites accusing MS for deliberately breaking SL on FF in a effort to kill FF).

There's also the fact that in the other browsers don't carter to enterprises, and as such are limited in ways they can be centrally locked down. Policy management is a huge deal for businesses, and IE is truly unrivaled in this sector. I would actually argue that this alone is far more then enough to keep IE.

At the end of the day, its pretty obvious MS needs its own browser to service all the segments Windows is supposed to service, and where other browsers are lacking or even if they have comparable tech, they have different tech. They have IE, which is here and it exists, with its multitude of failings in previous versions, although they have attempted to rebuild bridges and much more rigidly adhere to standards in 7 and especially 8. Developing a new browser would be just wasteful.

EDIT: In a nutshell, MS's continued development of IE isn't about the consumer space. They are relatively comfortable in recent years about consumers using other browsers (as seen with SL and MS's pages mostly gaining full functionality on alternate browsers). It even has the advantage of letting others service certain user needs that might not be appreciated with their enterprise customers (like the crazy extensibility of Firefox, for example). On the other hand, in the enterprise they need IE for a lot of their other tech to function. IE is essentially an enterprise browser that works fine for some consumers.