With recent rumors and yesterday’s official notice, Microsoft is retiring the IE (Internet Explorer) brand. For many web developers (and users), this is welcome news. Especially for developers, who spent many wasted hours – many as in millions – as they tried to get IE to behave when handling their latest site design.
(image credit: http://www.maximumpc.com)
I am certainly not sorry to hear of IEs demise. To Microsoft’s credit, though, this is yet another example of their recent push to recreate a new and friendlier identity. They continue to surprise me with their move to more open and non-MS specific technologies. For example, they recently released Office for iOS for free and offered a free Outlook for iOS and Android. Both of these are well developed and have quickly made inroads even onto my iOS devices.
If you are wondering where Microsoft is headed from here, there was an excellent episode of “The Web Ahead” podcast where the host, Jen Simmons, interviewed Rey Bango. As Technical Evangelist for Microsoft, Rey shares some great insight into Microsoft’s reasons for and subsequent transition from IE to its replacement, currently named Project Spartan.
If Web Design/Development is your thing, I can’t think of a better podcast than The Web Ahead for candid discussion on the latest topics from many of the top folks in the field. Give it a listen!